Review: We Live in Time
I don’t think it’s a love story. I think it’s a commentary on choice.
Review: We Live in Time ****
I went to watch We Live in Time last night. For someone who cries a fair amount, I didn’t yesterday. That’s not because it wasn’t sad—it was incredibly sad at times, and I welled up—but because I found the film more interesting than emotional. Its poster hails it as ‘one of the best movie romances in years’, but I disagree. I don’t think it’s a love story. I think it’s a commentary on female choice.
I’ve given it four stars for many reasons: I loved the cinematography, and it was funny, very funny, and heartwarming. I’m a big fan of films that explore the intricacies of human interaction and emotion. I also think Florence Pugh (Almut) and Andrew Garfield (Tobias) acted exquisitely—so much so that I think a disproportionate proportion of the film’s success can be attributed to their talent. I look up to both wholeheartedly and they so beautifully expressed the emotional nuances of love, connection, desire, and pain.
One reviewer on Letterboxd commented that they are ‘genuinely in awe that this isn’t based on some horrible bestselling book’. That's far too harsh in my eyes, but I can understand where they are coming from. I was surprised by how many clichés there were in Payne’s storyline. Being stuck in a traffic jam whilst in labour was very Bridget Jones; a trail of candles leading to a proposal is a trite gesture; and bursting through the door to passionately kiss against the wall during a first sexual encounter…well that’s just in everything.
While I also found the glittering montage of a couple on a carousel an overused visual, I can appreciate its metaphorical significance. As Tobias and Almut celebrate her cancer remission, the ever-turning carousel represents the passing of time and the cycle of life. The carousel links the couple to their childhood; its ceaseless turning the cycling of time into their adulthood. Childhood. Remission. Backwards. Forwards. They not only live in time, they are stuck in it. A carousel’s alternative name, the ‘merry-go-round’, is both aptly and ominously fitting for this moment; in their blissful oblivion, they are circled back to their future of her relapse. Inevitable. Fated.
In all honesty, I struggled with Tobias for most of the film. He made a lot of breathy, puppy dog eyes at Almut; everything was tender, tense, important. In fact, Garfield spent about 50% of his screen time with glazed eyes and it made me find his character irritating. I am curious to know whether this was a planned directorial decision. Tear-glazed eyes can be powerful, but when overdone, they lose their feeling. The tears start to become a barrier between audience and character; we lose our connection when rarely confronted with a character’s other emotions.
Working for Weetabix, we’re supposed to understand Tobias as an ‘ordinary’ man, unlike his award-winning figure-skater-turned-chef girlfriend. I think the message that your family, the love you build, and the way in which you touch others are just as important as personal achievements is valuable and true. However, he wasn’t given enough personality for me to fully empathise with him.
The other review on the poster claims that ‘Pugh and Garfield make a perfect movie couple’. Again, I disagree. He wasn’t quite fleshed out enough as a character for me to understand why Almut fell in love with him. This brings me back to my perception of the film being about choice, not romance.
In an interview, Andrew Garfield says Tobias ‘finds Almut inspiring and courageous; he wants to be around it and he wants to support it’. For me, this dynamic was integral to how I understood the story. Almut made choices. Tobias less so. This dynamic is clearly presented to the audience early in the film when Tobias gets hit by Almut’s car. This is the same with their relationship. She is the tour de force, he is in her path and follows her direction. Her personality hits him, knocks him to the ground, and builds him back up again. She is the force upon him. The film doesn’t show Tobias having interests, no family, no hobbies beyond Almut. When asking her to pick up their daughter from school, he mentions his ‘session’ will run late; no context, no depth. The intention here intrigues me; this generality encouraged me to look to Almut as the protagonist, to her choices and endeavours as carrying the message.
In contrast, Almut juggles her desires and obstacles as a woman: love, a career, motherhood, cancer, success, and death itself. It is She and Time that make the choices, rarely Tobias. He is a supporter, a lover. I left reading this as a feminist commentary, highlighting both the power of female choices and the complexities and hardships they bring. In these ways, it is interesting that it is written and directed by men, but also in some ways unsurprising.
If Crowley wanted We Live in Time to be about making our limited moments in this world count, it was outshone by Curtis’ About Time.
Instead, I watched a film that told me accomplishments of all sizes are important, but that there’s no way to ’get it right’ when navigating our sense of accomplishment within ourselves. Almut shows us that even the strongest leaders and mothers are constrained by time – they can’t control everything, and maybe time isn’t always well spent. But, as a woman, choosing how you love and how you achieve are what make a journey, a life, your own.
If Crowley wanted to say that he hit the nail on the head.