Chef Almut Brühl (Florence Pugh) and divorcée Tobias Durand (Andrew Garfield) meet when she accidentally runs him over. John Crowley’s film, written by Nick Payne, charts their romance from that moment.
We Live in Time has some serious structural issues. The story flits frequently between time periods and it felt to me that that device was an attempt to make a straight forward tale of a doomed romance to be more textured than it actually is. I never felt that I truly knew the characters or understood some of the decisions they made. It also features the dumbest meet cute. Tobias, in a hotel, needs a pen to sign his divorce papers. His pen has leaked and the one supplied by the hotel does not work. Instead of getting another from reception, he walks to a shop, wearing just underwear and a robe, and then blindly strolls into a busy road. What also took me out of the film was the egregious product placement, most notably Weetabix, but also Jaffa cakes.
The performances somewhat make up for the deficiencies in the script. Pugh is always great, even if she does not choose the best vehicles and Garfield is as good as I have seen him. There is also a lot of talent in the supporting cast, such as Niamh Cusack, Douglas Hodge, Adam James and Kerry Godliman.
Machined-tooled to induce tears, I am sure that will be more successful with some people than it was for me.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10