I knew that I wanted to see We Live In Time because I tend to want to see everything that stars either Florence Pugh or Andrew Garfield, and they both play main characters here. Aside from that, all I knew about the film is that it showed a relationship in non-chronological order. That's been done before, a number of times, and I was worried that We Live In Time might end up feeling too familiar to me, but I'm happy to say that it manages to avoid making you think of anything else while it all plays out. Viewers are, hopefully, far too invested in the onscreen couple, and what they're going through, to spend too much time thinking about any similarities with other movies.
Andrew Garfield is Tobias and Florence Pugh is Almut. The two meet just as Tobias is going through a divorce. Almut is a successful chef, and she's about to open her first restaurant. Making a strong connection immediately, they then have to navigate their way through conversations about whether or not to have children, career paths, and serious health issues that come along to spoil the party. It's all quite standard stuff, shaken up slightly by the non-chronological presentation, and elevated by both Garfield and Pugh being two people you can easily believe in their roles.
While I'm not familiar with the work of writer Nick Payne, who only seems to have written a couple of features and a decent selection of TV work before this, I am now happy to check out whatever he does next. We Live In Time may not deliver any surprises or stunning insights, but it's nicely crafted in a way that allows most of the scenes to feel as if they're built around a kernel of truth.
Director John Crowley has been doing very good work for the past couple of decades (he received a lot of love for Brooklyn, but I still highly recommend his debut feature, Intermission). He's not the sort of person to cover a film with his own fingerprints though, and I strongly suspect that his biggest talent is casting the right people as leading players.
There's a chance that other people could have made this work, but it's undeniable that it's hard to imagine anyone else doing as well as Garfield and Pugh. The former is unbelievably sweet and lovely in a way that aligns with what we've seen from Garfield in some of his real-life moments (interactions with fans, chat show conversations, etc), and Pugh gets to show a strength and determination that has been in the DNA of many of the characters she has played while making a hell of a name for herself since she started her movie career back in 2014. Lee Braithwaite does fantastic work, playing a supportive colleague/chef named Jade, Grace Delaney manages to be a cute child without ever being too irritating, and the rest of the cast includes familiar faces such as Aoife Hinds, Adam James, Douglas Hodge, Niamh Cusack, and Kerry Godliman, as well as the less familiar, but no less welcome, Nikhil Parmar, who certainly deserves a mention for being involved in a sequence that provides a perfect mix of tension, humour, reality, and ridiculousness.
There will be many who already know that they don't want to see this, and the ongoing sub-plot about a painful medical diagnosis won't be an easy watch for anyone who has had to watch a loved one go through anything similar, but I'd encourage most to give it a go. It takes you through a wide range of emotions, uses the time jumps to try and play around with your expectations, and ends in a way that feels thoughtful and satisfying.
8/10
If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do
consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A
subscription/follow costs nothing, and ALL of the links you need are here - https://linktr.ee/raidersofthepodcast
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share
No comments:
Post a Comment