We Live in Time is a romantic weeper with a gimmick: It tells its story out of order. There are solid reasons for movies to do this. The Outrun did this to invoke the cyclical nature of addiction. Memento did it to imitate its hero’s short-term memory loss. Pulp Fiction and many others did it to withhold information and create maximum suspense. More recently, Oppenheimer and Challengers did this to brilliant effect. I’m not sure why John Crowley’s movie makes you reorient yourself in time whenever the scene changes. The British film seems to be doing it just to do it. It didn’t need to, because its acting is more than enough to lift this above the dross of tearjerkers in our multiplexes.
The story covers 10 years in the relationship between London ad executive Tobias (Andrew Garfield) and restaurant chef Almut (Florence Pugh). In no particular order, they buy a house in the country, experience a recurrence of her cancer, see him divorce his first wife, meet by chance when she hits him with her car, attend the opening of her restaurant, have a daughter (Grace Delaney), experience her getting ovarian cancer for the first time, meet each other’s parents, and watch Almut represent Great Britain in the Bocuse d’Or competition. Because the story goes the way it does, the best indicator of where the characters are in time is the length of Almut’s hair, as she gets a buzz cut before undergoing chemo.
Crowley is the Irish director of Brooklyn who has had a spotty record outside his native country. He followed up that 2015 film with a forgettable adaptation of The Goldfinch and episodes of True Detective and Black Mirror. Here, though, he delivers something like success with the urbane London setting, particularly in a funny and harrowing scene when a traffic jam forces Almut to give birth in a gas station bathroom. This is Britain, so I should probably say “petrol-station loo.” Also, the scene is set off by Garfield’s freaked-out delivery of the line, “I see a face!”
I do wish Nick Payne’s script had focused more on the food, as the climax at the Bocuse d’Or — it’s been compared to the Olympics, but I’d say it’s more Eurovision with chefs instead of musicians — is a highlight. I’d sure like to know what Almut does with the octopus for her seafood entry for the competition, but we do see Tobias taste her Bavarian sausage with a lemon-mustard gel at the opening of her restaurant and decide she’s worth getting to know better.
Just watch We Live in Time for the lead actors, who create febrile chemistry with each other. Garfield is excellent here, but Pugh reaches even higher heights in the scene when Almut admits that she’s jeopardizing her health for the competition because she wants her daughter to remember her doing something tremendous instead of just dying young. I mean, how does this actress keep doing this? Since before the pandemic, she’s been doing nothing but great work in movies as different as Midsommar, Fighting With My Family, Black Widow, A Good Person, and Little Women. Even in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish she managed a memorable turn as a chav Goldilocks. Here she makes an indelible impression as a Michelin-starred chef who’s well aware that her timer is running out. How long can she keep going on this tear that she’s on? I don’t know, but we’ll all enjoy finding out.
We Live in Time
Starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh. Directed by John Crowley. Written by Nick Payne. Rated R.
