We Live In Time - Review

Florence Pugh & Andrew Garfield team up for this romantic drama about one couple's life journey, brought to you by A24.

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[evankaiser]

I interpreted the nonlinear story telling as a method of telling the viewers to watch it in the moment, and not to dwell so much on the past or the future. On one hand you can try to piece all the different scenes together in the correct order, but on the other you can appreciate the moments for what they are individually and how they speak to Tobias and Almut’s relationship. It’s about watching it, or “living” in the moment, not thinking too much about what’s happened or will happen

[craigbarr]

I wish I liked this more than I did. Two good performances, but everything around them lets them down. And the nonlinear storytelling undercuts the film. Such as when the characters have a fight and potential breakup over a topic, but it has zero emotional weight because we already know the results of the thing they got in a fight about.

[zed-up]

"Or is he?" *Vsauce music plays*

[diveguyty]

I think the non-linear story telling doesn’t play as big of an effect as people are making it out to be. The argument “well we see in the future that they’re together, so the outcome of the argument doesn’t mean as much because we already know they’re together”. If it was a linear story, we would still already know they’re together. It’s a movie. Obviously they’re going to be together in an hour because otherwise there wouldn’t be a movie.

I think overall, this isn’t a story about two people. It’s more of a story and cut-away of what life is. Life is messy. Life isn’t always linear. Life is sometimes cliche. And sometimes in life, your pen just doesn’t work. But all of that puts you where you are meant to be. The little details change your life, even if they seem insignificant. I think that this story shows that beautifully

[justanotherfrog]

totally agree with you, Dan. I saw it yesterday and was disappointed. I was hoping for a heartfelt emotional journey but I got that more out of Andrew Garfield's viral clip from NYT's "Modern Love" or the Elmo clip you mentioned than I did from this movie. He and Pugh are excellent, but the script really left me wanting more. The nonlinear storytelling really added nothing IMO. I was especially disappointed with how they dealt with arc around Pugh's character hesitating about having children. I'm a woman at that age where I'm having a lot of conflicting feelings (and arguments) about this very subject and it rubbed me the wrong way how there wasn't really any deciding factor or indication of why Pugh's character changed her mind on this, especially given the circumstances

[sawspearenjoyer]

it’s kind of remarkable that the non linear editing literally adds nothing to this movie lmao

[petersaunders]

Maybe both actors will show up in Secret Wars.

[TheBrookeJ]

I feel the same! I liked it, but it wasn’t as amazing as I though it was going to be. But Florence and Andrew are phenomenal, the story could’ve been adjusted a bit to resolve some of those big themes.

[houston-coley]

I’m glad somebody brought up the lack of payoff to Andrew Garfield cancelling the wedding for Pugh’s cooking competition. I couldn’t believe the movie (and the character) just let it go!

[trinaq]

It kind of reminded me of "The Last Five Years" musical, mostly due to being told out of choronical order, and focusing on a couple's relationship.

[yukijadenfilms]

While I was watching I was like okay there HAS to be a crazy reveal to justify the order of the story telling and we never really got that.

[justingriffiths]

As a hospital chaplain who has the quality vs quantity conversations, I appreciated where they started with that. I wish there had been more professional interactions shown to help them grapple with that very heavy question, (doctor, social worker, chaplain, therapist). Though I did love the emotional intelligence of the doctor. It definitely delved into the emotional challenges of this question and brought tears to my eyes at times (having seen this in real life many times.) I feel like them figuring out that decision together could have been the basis of the first act of the movie. The non-linear storytelling was not as clear as it could have been. The apartment and house, and Pugh's hair style were too similar between present and past, that there were times it was a couple minutes into a scene before I noticed the time jump.

Also, as someone who works with telling children hard truths, to have these otherwise emotionally intelligent parents, attempt to tell their daughter really hard news in a loud restaurant, felt awkward and out of place.

I hope the work of my profession can one day be accurately represented on-screen. There are thousands of chaplains around the world doing this work every day, and I have yet to see a good representation in film or television. Even with the many medical dramas that are out there.

[caridadchang]

Ok but how important was the carrousel horse?

[duckywinks]

Pretty much agreed with everything, just felt like the movie was never ambitious enough for it’s subject matter. Part of it is also that this kind of movie generally isn’t for me at all. Still liked it fine enough, but I doubt I’ll ever revisit it. Also I like that you clarified that you were referring to Elmo “The Muppet”.

[josedard]

This movie is like a delicious pork chop. You’ve had pork chop before. It’s nothing groundbreaking. But you like it because the chef did the best with those ingredients

[INRamos]

I can't believe he didn't reference the horse.

EDIT: There it is

[Noirlore]

Naming him Tobias is an awful choice imo. Small but important thing

[sacsmitty]

I went in knowing nothing about the movie and too was confused by the non linear story telling but by the end, I was torn up. I agree with many of the points made about things left hanging but the performances were amazing and admittedly the subject matter was close to home at times for me. I feel like it had heart…

[CountOrlok]

Well, your review pretty much confirms that this film is exactly what I expected. Someone I know at A24 said that this was basically A24 trying to recoup some losses from "Beau Is Afraid" and that the film felt very generic and studio-y, so...

[LungsOutJem]

If we learned anything from the early 2000s writer's strike, it's that a good director can get a great performance from even a bad actor, but no actor or director is good enough to make up for a bad script. You just can't skimp of hiring quality writers.