There are endearing, intelligent and forthright performances here from Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, who have a tender chemistry in this sensitive if, for me, contrived romantic drama from screenwriter Nick Payne and director John Crowley. It has won golden opinions and I wished I liked it more, having found it supremely watchable while not quite believing in any of it for a single moment.
You might call it One Day on shuffle; we see a relationship of two thirtysomethings with episodes in their lives shown out of order, though not exactly at random – the final scene is still its narrative climax. It shows the joys and heartaches of Tobias (Garfield) and Almut (Pugh) and their infant daughter Ella (Grace Delaney). Tobias is a good-tempered guy who’s an executive at the Weetabix breakfast cereal corporation; after some humorous establishing scenes, his quirky-ordinary job is pretty much forgotten about. The more important career is unquestionably Almut’s. She is a brilliant chef and restaurateur (and former ice-skating champ) specialising in Anglo-Bavarian fusion cuisine; her dedication to the job causing complicated feelings about parenthood. A terrible crisis and a fundamental, existential choice mean that they have to look hard at their lives and what their love for each other means.
Pugh’s muscular, sensual, charismatic presence packs a punch in every scene; she looks as though she could head-butt the camera and let you carry on watching the scene through a cracked lens without missing a beat. Garfield is more yieldingly gentle; he has many closeups in which his faltering smile seems on the verge of evolving into a baffled frown, or a laugh, or tears. They meet-cute when Tobias, holed up in a hotel room, can’t find a pen to sign his divorce papers and actually leaves the building in his white towelling robe to buy one – and Almut runs him over in his car.
In this fantasy-Curtisian situation, Tobias appears to be trying to cross a dual carriageway – and surely the hotel receptionist could have supplied a Biro? Well, perhaps the point is that Tobias is too angry and distraught to remember this (or put his clothes on) although extreme emotions are not precisely what Garfield’s performance is delivering. As for Almut, she has a fierce, almost fanatical dedication to her craft; as she prepares to compete in the Bocuse d’Or world chef championships, she forms a close friendship with commis-chef Jade – a really good performance from Lee Braithwaite – and appears increasingly neglectful of her family as well as her self-care.
Garfield and Pugh have a wonderful scene together when Almut is about to give birth; they get stuck in traffic on their way to hospital and find themselves in a petrol station disabled toilet, panickingly about to undergo the most dramatic event of their lives with the midwife on the speakerphone. It is touching and hilarious when Tobias sobs: “A face! I can see a face!” The witty and touching atmosphere is ingenious, though steering away from John Lewis Christmas ad territory.
I felt that the film was evasive about the uncinematic reality of what serious illness and death actually looks like, and the final choice is too simplistic. But the film is still something to see, if only for the marvellous performances from Garfield and Pugh.
• We Live in Time is in UK and Irish cinemas from 1 January, and Australian cinemas from 23 January.
