{"id":6347,"date":"2024-10-19T21:35:30","date_gmt":"2024-10-20T01:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6347"},"modified":"2024-11-23T23:07:30","modified_gmt":"2024-11-24T04:07:30","slug":"we-live-in-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/19\/we-live-in-time\/","title":{"rendered":"We Live in Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"We Live in Time<\/strong> (2024)\u00a0 \u00a0 A24\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 107 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, sexuality, nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Crowley\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Nick Payne\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Bryce Dessner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Stuart Bentley\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 18, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh, Grace Delaney, Lee Braithwaite, Aoife Hinds, Adam James, Douglas Hodge, Amy Morgan, Niamh Cusack, Lucy Briers, Robert Boulter, Marama Corlett, Nikhil Parmar, Kerry Godliman.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0It might cost me my guy card saying this, but I don\u2019t mind tearjerkers. I love a good sappy melodrama dealing with a sick or terminally ill person. I still think 1993\u2019s Untamed Heart is a great movie. We haven\u2019t seen too much of this kind of film since the last of the Nicholas Sparks adaptations, 2016\u2019s The Choice. The genre makes a return with the new film from John Crowley (Brooklyn), the love and cancer story We Live in Time<\/strong>. It\u2019s not as triumphant a return as one would like.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What saves We Live in Time<\/strong> from total failure are the performances from its two leads, Andrew Garfield (The Eyes of Tammy Faye) and Florence Pugh (Little Women). They play Tobias and Almut, a young British couple in love. He\u2019s a rep for Weetabix cereal (it\u2019s a Brit thing). She\u2019s a chef at a trendy fusion restaurant. He\u2019s recently divorced. She\u2019s single. Their meet-cute is one for the books. She hits him with her car while he\u2019s out buying a pen to sign the final divorce papers. From there, they proceed to fall in love. It\u2019s a rocky road, but they find their way. Then she\u2019s diagnosed with ovarian cancer for the second time.<\/p>\n

\u00a0That is just an overview of the plot. What sets We Live in Time<\/strong> apart from other films of its ilk is Crowley\u2019s decision to employ non-linear narrative in its telling. It jumps around in time a lot going from Almut receiving the news her cancer has returned to her pregnancy (between the two bouts of cancer) to the relationship\u2019s early days. It\u2019s a little confusing at first, but it\u2019s easy to follow once you understand what Crowley is up to. We\u2019re given pieces of information throughout like Almut being a figure skater as a teen and her secretly competing in a big cooking competition while she\u2019s undergoing radiation treatment. It\u2019s a lot, but screenwriter Nick Payne (The Sense of an Ending) brings it all together capably. That\u2019s not the problem.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The problem with We Live in Time<\/strong> is it\u2019s dramatically inert. Crowley tries, but it doesn\u2019t tug at the heartstrings like it should. It feels rather reserved, emotionally speaking. I guess it\u2019s a British thing. They\u2019re not known for especially demonstrative so maybe Crowley is just following suit. Even so, it also has a problem with tonal consistency. The way it mixes drama and humor feels off. The viewer isn\u2019t given time to feel sad before Crowley throws in something to elicit laughs. Take the scene where Tobias and Almut try to have a serious discussion with their young daughter about Mummy\u2019s illness at a family-style restaurant. Suddenly, an employee shows up and tries to entertain the kid with magic tricks. It throws everything off.<\/p>\n

\u00a0That\u2019s not to say We Live in Time<\/strong> doesn\u2019t have its moments. It does. One of the best scenes is when Almut goes into labor in a convenience store restroom (or \u201cloo\u201d). A traffic jam prevents medical help from getting there so it\u2019s up to two store employees to assist with the birth. It\u2019s funny and a little bit touching. If only Crowley could have managed this balance throughout.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The two leads save We Live in Time<\/strong>. Pugh, who I absolutely love, does a phenomenal job as Almut, a woman of many layers. She does all the heavy lifting as somebody, a partner (they\u2019re not married) and mother, dealing with the inevitability of a premature death. She wants to be remembered for something which is why she participates in Europe\u2019s biggest cooking competition even though she knows it\u2019s not good for her health. She runs the emotional gamut from happiness with her family to anger when Tobias confronts her about not wanting children. When is the Academy going to give this girl an Oscar?<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t think Garfield is all that strong an actor. He always looks like he\u2019s on the verge of busting out laughing. He\u2019s gotten better over the years and We Live in Time<\/strong> may be his best performance yet. He\u2019s quite good as the emotionally fragile partner trying to deal with the love of his life leaving him for the next world. He tries to be strong for Almut and the kid, but you can see he\u2019s barely holding it together. It\u2019s a tricky role, but he pulls it off.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think We Live in Time<\/strong> is a bad movie, but it\u2019s not a great one either. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d even call it good. It held my interest, but it left me cold in the end. I just wasn\u2019t feeling it. Crowley should have leaned into the melodrama more than he does. It might be an American thing, but it would have wrung more tears from the audience.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We Live in Time (2024)\u00a0 \u00a0 A24\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 107 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, sexuality, nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Crowley\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Nick Payne\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Bryce Dessner\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Stuart Bentley\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 18, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh, Grace Delaney, Lee Braithwaite, Aoife Hinds, Adam James, Douglas Hodge, Amy Morgan, Niamh Cusack, Lucy Briers, Robert […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/We-Live-in-Time-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6347"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6410,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6347\/revisions\/6410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}