2024 may go down as the year that A24, the arthouse powerhouse behind such modern indie classics as Lady Bird and Moonlight, began dipping its toes into the cinematic mainstream. In addition to Maxxxine, the latest installment in Ti West’s “elevated slasher” franchise, the studio also released their first fully fledged action blockbuster in Alex Garland’s Civil War. Now, with We Live in Time, A24 has branched fully into the mainstream romantic weepie, casting two of indiedom’s most reliably effervescent stars in a neo-Love Story tearjerker which feels like an adaptation of a wildly popular beach-read bestseller, but somehow isn’t. The result, while suitably hitting all the prerequisite beats of the genre, somehow never quite packs the wallop one would want it to– and I’m still trying to figure out why.
We begin at– or near– the end, with young couple Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield grappling with an earth-shattering diagnosis. We then wind back the clock to the beginning of their relationship: Pugh, we learn, is Almut, the high-powered chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant, and Garfield’s Tobias was a hapless recent divorcee whom she accidentally hit with her car. From here, we jump around the timeline of their relationship, from their courtship to the birth of their daughter, and on past Almut’s diagnosis as she weighs how best to spend what will almost certainly be her last year on earth– and as Tobias tries to make sense of what his life will be without his partner.
As if in response to the Coolidge’s continuing salute to the theatrical gimmickry of B-movie king William Castle, the public preview screening I attended provided the audience with complimentary packets of tissues, presumably to dry their eyes as the film neared its heart-rending climax. I will admit to being far from the target audience of We Live in Time, but most of my fellow attendees seemed to fit the general profile– book club types, let’s call them– and I kept one ear tuned to the crowd to see if I could detect the tissues in use. Perhaps surprisingly, I didn’t hear a single honk, and only a minimum of sniffles; one woman even whispered to her companion, “That’s it?” We Live in Time has all the makings of a tearjerker for the ages, so why was this fully primed audience, hankies at the ready, so strangely nonplussed?
The issue, I think, is that We Live in Time is a film with no small moments. There are four main plot threads– the meet-cute, the pregnancy, the cancer, and Almut’s career– and every single thing that happens relates to one of those four things. We never hear Almut and Tobias talk about music, or television, or anything without some grand significance in the arc of their life together. There are, by my count, two supporting characters of any import– Almut’s assistant (Lee Braithwaite) and Tobias’s father (Douglas Hodge)– the latter of whom disappears from the narrative so early on that we don’t know if he ever meets his granddaughter or learns of his daughter-in-law’s illness. We never learn anything about Tobias’s ex-wife; in fact, I don’t think we know a single one of his passions or interests apart from his love for his partner and daughter. Even the much-ballyhooed sex scenes are entirely in the interest of major plot points. In short, we never get to see what a normal day looks like for these two– which, in a movie like this, is a near-fatal flaw.
So what, you might ask; why should we ding a story for leaving out unnecessary details? The problem is that a love story– any love story– is all about the unnecessary details. Consider the famous lobster scene from Annie Hall, a silly bit of slapstick which is rendered unexpectedly melancholy when it’s evoked in the final act as a reminder of what’s been lost after Annie and Alvy part ways. The same goes for all the casual banter of When Harry Met Sally, or the seemingly “lesser” chapters in The Worst Person in the World– seemingly insignificant moments which compound into something meaningful. When the final inevitabilities of We Live in Time arrived, I wanted to be crushed by the tragedy of it all, but it just feels hollow without those moments of calm and intimacy. The love between Almut and Tobias is relatable, but the story is just too big.
Of course, any screen love story is only partly about what it’s about; it also must serve an almost anthropological purpose, the thrill of watching two charismatic and beautiful people succumb to each other’s charms. On this count, We Live in Time is a success, pairing as it does two of our most eminently watchable movie stars. Pugh is, of course, radiant as always, here given a role which allows her to flex both the depths of emotion she bared in Midsommar and the good-humored cheek she regularly shows off on her Instagram. Garfield, for his part, seems to be at a point in his career at which he’s uncertain whether he’s Jimmy Stewart or Anthony Perkins; while I generally prefer him in the latter mode, his silly-guy energy is infectious, even as he Hugh Grants his way through such contrived rom-com moments as awkwardly confessing his love in the middle of a baby shower (Whose baby? We don’t know; they’re not important to the story). Both actors seem to be having a ball playing off of each other, especially given a rare break from their usual faux-American accents. Both actors are good-looking and energetic and charming as hell, and in a movie like this, that’s more than half the battle.
And there are some great moments here: a hilariously frantic childbirth scene in a petrol station restroom, or an amusingly awkward scene in which a serious parental discussion is interrupted by an inopportune restaurant magician (Almut also dispenses a handful of handy cooking tips which I am sure will stick with me long after I forget where I picked them up). But We Live in Time just can’t help but feel a little mechanical, an engine so perfectly optimized to be the ultimate weepie that it misses the intangibles that make for a truly satisfying ugly cry. Love is messy; We Live in Time is too tidy by half. It is as if the film were crafted in Almut’s kitchen, an impeccable creation for refined palates– when all we really want is a sloppy burger and a pint of Häagen-Dasz.
We Live in Time
2024
dir. John Crowley
107 min.
Opens Friday, 10/18 @ Coolidge Corner Theatre, Somerville Theatre, Kendall Square Cinema, and AMC Boston Common
