You Almost Have to See the New Florence Pugh–Andrew Garfield ...

According to its star, Florence Pugh, We Live in Time is about “the simplest of things, which is that we are here, I personally believe, for one reason only: to love and be loved.” This is the movie previously best known for a bugged-out carousel horse from a viral promo photo of Pugh and her co-star Andrew Garfield canoodling in the midst of equine doofiness. Well, I have now seen this simplest of romances, and I am here to tell you it’ll soon be known for something else: a totally bonkers premise that is destined to be a signpost of terminal heterosexuality.

Let me just tell you what happens (ahem, spoilers ahead). Director John Crowley’s rom-dramedy traces the relationship between its principal characters, Brits Almut (Pugh) and Tobias (Garfield), from start to tragic end, albeit out of order. Three distinct timelines representing various phases of the relationship are braided to give you the impression that the story is more complicated than it is. Focused on Almut’s perspective, We Live in Time stages a tug-of-war between a modern sensibility necessary to make this thing pop and the traditionalism that could make it, in Pugh’s estimation, “one of those movies that will matter to a lot of people, and will live for a long time.” In other words, a new-school classic with many old-school tendencies.

Almut is a modern gal—the kind who keeps condoms in a bedside drawer (“Such low expectations,” she says after Tobias confesses that he doesn’t have one on him) and is devoted to her career as a chef of Anglo-Bavarian cuisine. Soon after meeting, Almut tells Tobias that kids aren’t really her thing. But they are his thing, and he ignores her words for just a few weeks before circling back on the matter, which leads to the kind of monumental declaration of love that movies that live for a long time tend to have: “I’m worried there’s a very distinct and real possibility that I am about to fall in love with you,” he says. Almut’s having none of it. Her reaction is belligerently dismissive when he broaches the kids conversation (“I’m sorry, but what the actual fuck are you even talking about right now?”), and stays that way even after he’s offered his heart. She’s not interested in making that kind of a promise: “And in fact there’s a little bit of me that thinks ‘fuck you’ for even asking.”

But Almut can resist the gravitational pull of heteronormativity only for so long. When she is soon diagnosed with cancer, she has the option of a partial or full hysterectomy. The full hysterectomy comes with less risk of recurrence (and a lower risk of, you know, death). Yet she chooses the former, reasoning, “Just because in a general sense I never saw myself having kids doesn’t mean that there isn’t a world where I couldn’t see myself in time deciding to have them with you.” This is framed as her choice (progressive!), but it’s just one example of how Nick Payne’s screenplay guides the slightly unruly Almut back to the center, no matter the cost. We Live in Time simply couldn’t justify its own existence as a tearjerker if Almut didn’t die in the end, and so it’s no surprise that she does have a kid after taking the risk, and then she ends up being diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer after she’s given birth. Her decision gave one life and will take another: hers. This is a movie that is designed to not protect the life of the mother.

After that second diagnosis—which is revealed early in a film that never stops hopping around in time—Almut and Tobias have a heart-to-heart in which she declares that she’s “not particularly interested in a treatment plan that accidentally wastes our time,” and would rather opt for “six fucking amazing, fantastic, proactive months than 12 really, really shitty passive ones.” Because it comes so early in the movie, this seems to be the announcement of its premise: Seize the day! Don’t let imminent death stop you from living your best life! Having not yet made her an honest woman, despite their shared life and child, Tobias proceeds to propose. Jubilation ensues. They’re getting married! She’s going to pour her remaining life into the stressful and, by virtually all accounts, rarely fun ordeal of planning a wedding! Yay?

There’s a bit of theatrical poking at gender roles—Almut’s job as a chef features prominently, while his as a rep for a cereal company is basically an afterthought. Also, Tobias is on the soft side: At a certain point about midway through, it seems like Garfield is acting through quietly forming tears in every scene. He busies himself with picking out their save-the-date mailers while she can’t be arsed, as they say in the U.K. These amount to empty gestures, though. We Live in Time has the standard-setting feel of a decades-old movie—it’s the kind of portrayal of “pure love” that’s easy to mistake for a prescription of how things should be. This is a traditional, nay conservative, movie dressed up in funky clothes. Of course it has a meet cute, but it’s offbeat enough to impart the feeling of never having seen this thing that we’ve actually seen countless times: Wearing a hotel robe, Tobias wanders onto a fairly large highway to pick something up off the ground after retrieving some pens and a chocolate-covered orange from a convenience store and gets hit by a car. When he comes to in the hospital, Almut is sitting across from him. She informs him, “I ran you over.” The film doesn’t do much to interrogate Tobias’ daftness (the scene of him wandering into traffic like a raccoon is just played for laughs and truly perplexing). Attempts at levity here can also be tonally jarring, sometimes veering into sitcom territory, like when Almut is in labor en route to the hospital and the couple finds themselves in a traffic jam. They abandon the car to buy snacks for her, she goes to the bathroom, and ends up delivering the kid there. Afterward, they pack in an ambulance to get to the hospital. What happened to their car? Earlier hospital-bound hijinks find their Mini Cooper sandwiched between two closely parked cars, and the tedious process of pulling away is reminiscent of an Austin Powers bit.

There are some appealing things about We Live in Time, particularly its lead actors. “Chemistry” seems too strong a word for what’s on-screen; the brief sex scenes cut before they can reach a simmer. But Pugh and Garfield do a convincing job of conveying love for each other. His nonverbal acting is particularly on point—after learning that kids are not Almut’s thing, he winces subtly watching her prepare food. Elsewhere, there’s a lovely moment early in their relationship in which he watches her from across the room at a party and catches her eye, some silent recognition of burgeoning love. But in much the same way that We Live in Time is suspended between the progressive ideals it pretends to have and the rigid traditionalism at its core, it’s also a tearjerker with a weak grip. The choppy editing can’t obscure the actual punches pulled. A scene is set up for Almut and Tobias to tell their child Ella about Almut’s cancer only to cut before the explanation and the child’s reaction. Almut’s first round of treatment is totally glossed over.

In a final twist toward the end of the movie, Almut reveals that she’s been practicing for the prestigious Bocuse d’Or culinary competition, which just happens to be scheduled for the weekend they were supposed to be married. She effectively chooses her work over the wedding, complete with a speech about why the competition is so important to her. She doesn’t want to just be “someone’s dead fucking mum.” She wants her daughter to have something to remember her by and not have their relationship be defined by her declining health. “Or maybe I actually just can’t bear the thought of being forgotten,” Almut says. Regardless, her decision is made, and it seems for a moment that We Live in Time is liberated from its stuffiest tendencies. This is her work station to die on. Tobias then dumps their save-the-date cards into the trash while sobbing over the pain of unrealized tradition.

But that speciously rousing third-act declaration makes the end of her story all the more baffling. Immediately after apparently completing the competition with no time left to spare (and some crucial help from her sous-chef), Almut takes off her chef’s hat, exits the stage before results are announced, grabs her family from the stands, and heads off to an ice-skating rink. Earlier in the movie, during a dinner with Almut’s and Tobais’ families, it’s revealed that Almut used to be a competitive figure skater (naturally!). So it seems that if she can’t impart the memory of her triumph at the Bocuse d’Or to her daughter, she can at least display her skating skills. She leaves her family at one end of the rink and begins skating by herself. In the air is the promise of a stunt double sporting Pugh’s head via CGI, turning an axel or two. But instead, she just skates fast, hooks around to face them from afar, and waves. This is the last time we see Almut—no real decline via cancer (though it does prompt her to buzz her head and throw up a few times), no final virtuosic act her daughter can hold onto. She’s not yet a dead mom, but she is a waving mom. So much for accomplishments.

The death itself is implied. The final scene features Tobias and Ella gathering eggs from chickens outside their home and then preparing food. He reminds his daughter of Almut’s method of cracking eggs (on a flat surface) and that’s it. As legacies go, Almut’s is awfully undercooked. She wants to have it all and dies as a consequence. So too does We Live in Time want to be many things in its striving to transcend the brutal constraints of these sorts of romances. “Hopeless romantics” barely begins to describe it.