“Just another romance movie of a wife with cancer” is what I thought walking into Park Cinemas theater last month.

Boy was I wrong.

When I first heard of “We Live in Time”, the highly-anticipated, R-rated romance film starring Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man, Tick-Tick Boom) and Florence Pugh (Midsommar, Little Women), I expected an endearing but basic love story. Instead, I received a perspective-changing experience and a bucketload of tears.

BACKGROUND:

This transformative movie, released October 11, 2024, centered around two characters, Tobias and Almut, who go through the highs and lows of life together: love, illness, parenthood, and death. Arranged in short scenes from alternating timelines, I was a bit confused at times, but it eventually became engaging, leaving me anticipating what would come after each scene. This patch-work of clips allowed me to understand each character’s emotional journey and their thought process behind each decision. A beautiful love story develops  through hard-hitting emotional scenes – displaying the ups and downs of living with cancer – and also hilarious ones. Some scenes appeared happy on the outside, making the ensuing tragedy even more devastating. I became so attached to the characters that I still had the urge to watch the characters smile, even if it was only a quick one.

REFLECTION:

I believe that this film was an amazing portrayal of our fleeting moments as humans, both the bad and good ones. The emotional performances of Garfield and Pugh really cemented this message, allowing us to experience the joy and sadness alongside their characters. For example, when the couple finds out they are pregnant after facing cancer and IVF, I was left in tears. Additionally, the birth scene was somewhat comedic with its inopportune timing, but also deeply impactful with intense acting and realistic visuals. I was entranced with how well it encapsulated the short meaningful moments in our lives. 

If I had any criticism about this work, it would be that I wished we could spend more time with the characters and emotions. At times, I felt like a  scene needed more development, and I wished we could see the immediate aftermath, not a jumpback to five years ago. However, this could have been a strategic move to demonstrate the briefness of these moments in the grand scheme of things, and leaving an open-endedness for reflection on what could have happened. Or perhaps it was a jerk to reality, where life passes us by, leaving us wishing we took advantage of the time when we had it.

STATS:

The success of this film is evident with its gathering of $25 M in box office sales worldwide as of December 3, about two months after its release (Collider). It has received a score of 78% from Rotten Tomatoes and 7.3/10 on IMDb. But its time in the spotlight is not over yet, with the release of the film in UK theaters on January 1, 2025. I am expecting a great response from this crowd, and looking forward to seeing more takes on its touching story.