It’s been said that the rom-com is dead. Where the likes of Julia Roberts and Nancy Meyers once had our cinemas in a chokehold, the froth of yesteryear has now dried up, replaced by sterner and more self-serious fare. To an extent, it’s understandable; gone are the days of loud boombox declarations of love. Instead, we live in the age of situationships and Tinder, which hardly translate to gripping cinema. Moreso, though, it seems that our newly cynical approach is simply unwilling to tolerate the cheese of 10 Things I Hate About You or the earnestness of When Harry Met Sally.
We Live in Time is, sure, cheesier than a plate of food in America, and is so heartfelt you wonder if its writer was high while putting it together (even its title scans as overly ambitious); it was marketed as a compelling awards-season drama but might have been better sold as an elevated Hallmark movie. It contains the well-worn tropes: hot people get together, have a baby, conflict along the way. Especially in our current cinematic landscape, the film really shouldn’t work – and yet it does.
In large part, the success of We Live in Time as a rom-com owes a debt to its central performances. As expected, Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield (two of the finest, most empathetic actors of their generation) have chemistry to spare as Almut and Tobias, who meet after the former runs the latter over with her car. The dry, uniquely British humour in the couple’s early moments is written with warmth and charm by screenwriter Nick Payne, and so the viewer finds themselves falling in love with these characters too.
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Two of the finest, most empathetic actors of their generation
Be warned, though: this film will only mend your heart for so long before it proceeds to gently annihilate it. Early in the nonlinear narrative, which flits back-and-forth at random, Almut is diagnosed with cancer. Thus, the film transcends the safeness of its rom-com trappings to become an affecting meditation on premature grief, grappling with the idea of making the most of our time on Earth within parameters of that increasingly limited time.
Through this lens, then, the moments of a life being lived captured on screen – a trip to an ice rink and a cooking competition among them – become all the more special when you realise how soon those moments will be snatched cruelly from the characters. As Almut’s time runs out, she rushes to tick things off her bucket list; the ice rink trip fulfilling a promise to her late father, the cooking competition acting as a swan song for her career as a Bavarian-fusion chef. Pugh’s humanity is so magnetic in these scenes you often forget she’s acting – only making her character’s worsening health more heartbreaking.
For all its tenderness, the film often rests on its saccharine laurels; you wish Payne might make more profound or nuanced observations on the premature grief experienced by Tobias or the daughter he’ll be left to care for, and as such both characters feel underwritten in contrast to the vividly realised Almut. Further, the decision to tell the story in a nonlinear fashion hinders as much as it helps. While in principle it makes sense that a film about the fleeting nature of time has its key moments contextualised via flashback, in practice the shifts in perspective are confusing and on occasion tonally jarring.
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Pugh’s humanity is so magnetic in these scenes you often forget she’s acting
When the film grounds itself, though, it finds its feet. In subtle, everyday moments like Almut’s reveal of her technique for cracking an egg (on a flat surface), or the moment her and Tobias reveal their favourite Celebrations (a Bounty and Twix respectively), the beauty of these characters’ inner lives comes to the forefront, allowing the filmmakers to highlight their central point about the beautiful fragility in these everyday moments. No matter how manufactured the film’s tearjerking scenes may read, they never feel unearned. In the end, you feel as though you’ve lived an entire life alongside the characters.
Verdict:
If We Live in Time isn’t terribly original, it remains worth a watch, even just to support the dying rom-com genre at the cinema (as long as you bring tissues). More than a well-acted rom-com, it has some lovely things to say about how we carry each other through time, and – though the lack of dry eyes in the house might suggest otherwise – this is an optimistic, uplifting and life-affirming film, ultimately emphasising how precious each moment we spend on Earth is. To borrow a sentiment from Kung Fu Panda: each day is a gift, and We Live in Time exemplifies why today is called the present.
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