Throughout the past year, news and information about the new romance film of the year, “We Live in Time,” started pouring into news outlets and social media, making the new tear-jerking film stand out with a cast of some of the biggest stars at the moment: Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh. The film was released on October 11th of 2024, under studio A24.
“We Live in Time” tells us the story of Tobias Durant, a recently divorced man, and Almut Brühl, an extraordinary chef as well as retired professional ice skater. This couple meets when Almut runs over Tobias by accident, and from there we see both their evolution as a couple as well as individuals and professionals.
This movie tries to do a lot all at the same time, with scenes cutting from different moments in their relationship almost without any distinct change. It’s not like most movies where if there are time skips, it is shown by changes on location or appearance. Most of the film the characters look the exact same, and this is where the film truly makes its biggest mistake.
With such an emotion focused film, with us connecting to the characters and relationships shown on screen being the biggest objective, getting the audience confused is the worst situation that can happen. Not understanding many of the events happening and especially why the characters are feeling and taking these decisions makes the emotional punches so much less effective and sadly, takes away what could have been a great sad movie.
Apart from this, I will say that Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh give it their all. The acting is top notch, and they are the backbone of the whole film, making the confusion of it all less punishing as their chemistry works really well and make it feel like a completely average but lovely couple, especially in the last 30 minutes.
This end stretch of the film is the highlight of it all, showing us important ideas and realizations of both characters as well as a very predictable, but sad ending. The combination of both a new member of the family, and a prestigious cooking competition in which Almut participates, with the diagnosis and worsening of cancer, makes for an incredible gut punch for all audiences.
Finally, one of the aspects I want to highlight is how the movie represents Almut both as a professional in her field and a cancer patient. Most movies always put these patients as almost an easy “gotcha” to the audience, and overall, it dilutes their personality a lot. This film makes something very different which is making the character keep strong and even more inspired by this diagnosis. The character of Almut is amazingly written and makes for a multi-faceted women both as a mother and chef.
“We Live in Time” is now available in all film theaters around the world, and I would recommend it to the fans of romantic films and those who want to cry for a good minute or two.
