We Live In Time Review: Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield are irresistible Smash Cut

TIFF 2024 | Moving back and forth in their history, We Live In Time follows a couple through the ups and downs of life.

Headlined by charming-than-ever performances by Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, We Live In Time is a surprisingly entertaining and funny rom-dramedy that is elevated by a smart non-linear structure and kinetic pace. It'll warm your heart before tearing it into pieces.

We Live In Time premiered at the 2024 Toronto International FIlm Festival. A24 will release the film on October 11.

From their fateful meet cute (if you can consider near vehicular manslaughter one) to the birth of their child to a devastating diagnosis, We Live In Time floats back and forth through time to tell the story of Almut (Florence Pugh) and Tobias's (Andrew Garfield) relationship. It's a familiar story. Boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy and girl have ups and downs, then something threatens to tear them apart. You can, with some certainty, predict every story beat from start to finish.

But two things set We Live in Time apart. The non-linear narrative, moved with swift pace thanks to John Crowley's deft direction and Bryce Dessner's twinkling score, tells you the ending before showing the journey. It lets you fall into step with the emotion of the story rather than the specifics of it. Second, the charisma and chemistry of Pugh and Garfield are impossible to resist and give Almut and Tobias so much lived-in life and voracity.

As the movie unravels their pasts, we deepen our understanding of their decisions leaving us with an empathetic portrait of all stages of a relationship and what happens when you merge individuals with their separate ideologies, traumas and hopes into one. And while that might sound heavy, We Live In Time never feels overwrought. The emotions are real, but treated as simply a part of life rather than a plot point. Something that holds weight but because time marches on needs to fade away.

Almut, a chef at the top of her game who at one point says she couldn't imagine having a child, and Tobias, a corporate drone with a romantic heart and aspirations for family navigate the trickiness with cheer and humor. British playwright Nick Payne, who penned the screenplay, presupposes that life's big struggles are best defeated with life's little joys. In one of the best sequences, type A Tobias is tasked with helping Almut deliver their first child in a gas station bathroom. A trauma that is made better by their ability to laugh through life's pains. It makes watching them go through it all the more enjoyable.

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Karl Delossantos

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Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.