One of the loveliest things about watching a film like We Live in Time is watching life being lived. Director John Crowley and writer Nick Payne paint a heartwarming, often humorous, and moving picture of a couple whose love for each other simply exists. Between work and caring for a child, illness, and growing a relationship, the romantic drama is a captivating, tear-jerking experience. It’s gentle and warm, like listening to waves on the beach. It lulls us into the comforts of a seemingly endless love, but its decades-spanning and non-chronological storytelling reminds us that life can always be unexpected.

The film explores the lives of Almut (Florence Pugh) and Tobias (Andrew Garfield) at different stages in their relationship. Recently divorced, Tobias meets Almut after an accident, though it’s not what We Live in Time opens with. The drama moves seamlessly between one moment and another — pregnancy, dating, raising their daughter — and it falls into a rhythm that becomes almost hypnotic, even as we’re thrown into the midst of Almut’s cancer diagnosis. I was hesitant to become invested in them because Almut’s illness prepares us for what’s to come later, but it’s hard not to fall into the couple’s orbit.

Florence Pugh & Andrew Garfield Pour Their Hearts Into Their Characters
Image via A24

Garfield and Pugh’s performances are charismatic and tender. While their characters can occasionally feel thinly drawn, the actors infuse so much heart into them that I couldn’t help but fall in love with them and their love for one another. Payne manages to paint a broad enough picture of Almut and Tobias while giving them a lived-in feel. Despite having only met at one point, there’s an instant connection and draw to each other. The film is filled with an abundance of powerful moments like this. It’s a testament to Pugh and Garfield’s excellent chemistry that it works so well.

And that’s what
We Live in Time
does so well: It brings life’s moments — big, small, and often mundane — into focus and allows us to enjoy them fully.

The love story at its heart is one of the best film romances we’ve gotten in years. Payne and Crowley both understand how to give us a worthwhile relationship. It’s one where we can laugh with the characters and also cry with them. Garfield is a master at playing sensitive men, and that remains true here. His performance is heartbreaking, gentle, and caring. Pugh’s Almut is more fiery by comparison, and the two challenge each other.

Pugh, like Garfield, can do a lot with her face to convey emotion. It’s hard to buy her as a 34-year-old when the couple first meet, but the actress gives Almut enough gravitas and depth that it’s easy to overlook. With so much riding on these two central performances, Garfield and Pugh do more than enough to layer Tobias and Almut, forming into people who are just trying to live and love as hard as they can for as long as they can. To that end, We Live in Time can be quite beautiful, rueful yet joyful.

We Live In Time Isn’t Only About The Sad Parts Of Life

The romantic drama doesn’t firmly ground itself in melancholy, though. It can also be quite funny, full of lighthearted moments that balance the cloud that follows Tobias and Almut. There’s a particularly excellent scene that sees Almut delivering the couple’s daughter in one of the most unlikely places. It’s one of the funniest moments in the film and the audience rightly laughed. And that’s what We Live in Time does so well: It brings life’s moments — big, small, and often mundane — into focus and allows us to enjoy them fully.

Crowley’s direction is languid, allowing us to linger on every word and expression between the characters. There’s a lot that goes unsaid, but we feel it just as keenly. Stuart Bentley’s cinematography is almost wistful, a balance of bright and dim to capture the mood. Since the story isn’t told chronologically, there’s no buildup toward a major conflict, but the tension still exists as Almut and Tobias navigate her illness and Almut prioritizes a chef’s competition. The final scenes are meant to be a gut punch, but they’re also soft and heartfelt.

We know while watching Almut and Tobias go through life that these loving, sad, beautiful experiences are fleeting. They come and go, often without thought, but they shape us. I thought a bit of David Nicholls’ One Day, recently adapted into a Netflix series, while watching (for all the good reasons). We Live in Time gives us what we’ve been missing from romantic dramas. It might be a tearjerker, but there’s a sense of peace watching the couple live as full a life as they can together. And really, that’s all we can ask for while we’re still here.

We Live in Time had its premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The film is 107 minutes long and rated R for language, sexuality, and nudity.