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Released by: A24
Released on: January 7th, 2025.
Director: John Crowley
Cast: Florence Pugh, Andrew Garfield
Year: 2024
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We Live In Time – Movie Review:
John Crowley’s 2024 film, We Live In Time, is, at its core, an overly sentimental romantic tearjerker but it’s also a showcase for leads Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield to really sink their teeth into their respective roles and deliver some first class performances. The fact that the movie is as beautifully shot as it is doesn’t hurt things either.
As to the story? After a jog through the pastural countryside that sets up the movie, Almut (Pugh),a professional chef by trade, talks to her husband Tobias (Garfield) about her recent terminal cancer diagnosis. For all intents and purposes, she has roughly six months left if she just lives her life, but if she suffers through chemo for a year, she has a slight chance of surviving – emphasis on slight. As such, they have a horrible decision to make: do they enjoy the time they have left together as much as possible or does Almut go through a living Hell in hopes of coming through this alive?
With this basic concept out of the way, the story, written by Nick Payne, the narrative jumps around through different time frames as we see the ups and downs that the couple has to deal with, Almut’s battle with cancer, how they first came to meet and start their relationship (they meet when she hits him with her car!), how this turns out to be Almut’s second battle with cancer, her pregnancy and her decision to compete in a cooking contest in hopes that she’ll shuffle off this mortal coil with an notch on her belt that she’s always wanted.
Some will, no doubt, be put off the film by how seemingly random the narrative is but if you let yourself get involved in the storyline, and don’t mind having to pay close attention to figure out where you are in the movie’s timeline at any given point, We Live In Time is a worthwhile film. Production values are top notch, and cinematographer Stuart Bentley does fantastic work here not only in bringing us in to all of the drama inherent in the film’s very concept, but in showing off some gorgeous scenery throughout the movie as well. Justine Wright’s editing is on point, again, you just have to be willing to invest in the movie to appreciate it, while the score from Bryce Dessner is as emotionally moving as you’d expect it to be for a movie that pulls at your heart strings the way that We Live In Time does.
With all of that said, it’s the acting in the film that really hits home. Florence Pugh does a fantastic job of breaking your heart here, beautiful and tragic, able to handle the film’s lighthearted moments, such as where she wakes Garfield’s character up by trying to spoon feed him in bed, to the more intensely dramatic moments such as when she’s dealing with cancer and trying to make difficult decisions. Garfield proves every bit her equal, balancing his character’s care and concern for Pugh’s with both the warmth and the sadness that would, understandably, come part and parcel with a situation like the one explored by the movie.
We Live In Time – Blu-ray Review:
A24 brings We Live In Time to Blu-ray framed at 2.39.1 in an AVC encoded 1080p transfer and it looks excellent. Shot digitally, the image is obviously spotless, and it shows impressive detail throughout, especially in the close-up scenes, though it isn’t limited in that way as the picture shows off all the details present in the medium and long shots either, as the opening shots demonstrate. There’s really nice texture here as well and good depth the image. Colors look great, especially the greens featured in the movie, and black levels are nice and deep. Skin tones look natural and the image is free of any obvious compression artifacts or sharpening. All in all, the movie looks great on Blu-ray.
Audio chores are handled by an English language Dolby Atmos mix. English SDH, English Descriptive Audio and Spanish subtitles are all provided. Audio quality is also excellent, with the surround channels used aggressively throughout the movie starting with the use of music and the gun shots at the range early in the film. The soundtrack swounds great and it remains clean and clear throughout the movie.
Extras include commentary with director John Crowley and writer Nick Payne that, in a very relaxed tone, gives us a bit of a scene specific look at the making of the movie, going over memories of shooting specific scenes, changes that were made to the script during the process, the challenges of making a non-linear film and how it made for a tough edit, the use of "bookends" in the narrative, where some of the ideas for the story came from, why certain shots are setup the way that they are, how nervous they were to shoot specific scenes in the script, how charming they feel the performances are and what it was like working with the cast members, the themes and concepts that the movie explores and more.
A making-of featurette runs ten-minutes and features input from Garfield and Pugh as well as Crowley and Payne on the characters that they play, the themes that the movie explores including love and obsession, the different events and timelines that the movie uses to tell its story, why the movie is non-linear and how the movie asks us to look at how we spend the limited time that we have on this planet.
Included inside the packaging along with the disc is a set of six behind the scenes photographs on postcard-sized prints by Peter Mountain.
We Live In Time - The Final Word:
We Live In Time is earnest and well-acted, a very good looking film that really lets Pugh and Garfrield shine in the lead roles. The narrative itself is, like so many romance films, overly sentimental at times but the performances and production values are strong enough to hold your attention regardless. A24’s Blu-ray looks excellent and offers up great audio and a few nice extras to cover the making of the movie.