You know something tragic is going to happen, or someone’s gonna die before the opening titles are finished. The two lovers in embrace, soft light, gentle music, pacing that is in no rush to get anywhere—all are hallmarks of a moment remembered long after it has transpired, and all are hallmarks of a storyteller in no hurry to tell a story.

We Live in Time, written by Nick Payne and directed by John Crowley, is a story with no weight to it. It’s a love story surrounding a loss so obvious that the movie might as well open with Tobias (Andrew Garfield) standing in the cemetery while the workers lay his wife Almut (Florence Pugh) to rest.

That’s not giving anything away. As is par for the course these days, We Live in Time hopscotches between the past and present to tell the story of boy meets girl, girl dies, boy carries on. The particulars unique to this telling: boy meets girl in a car accident, girl is diagnoses with ovarian cancer, survives, and gives birth before the cancer comes out of remission. Oh, and the boy works for a cereal company, Weetabix. There’s nothing significant about Tobias working for a multi-national cereal corporation other than that’s the only thing we really know about Tobias. Other than he talks very softly and looks as if he’s about to cry at any second.

Almut, in contrast, is a white-hot ball of passion and drive. As a youth, she was an accomplished figure skater. Now, she’s a Michelin-rated chef working in haute cuisine. She has that cagey, I-know-more-than-you cool to her, but the movie never really capitalizes on it. Instead, it uses her ambition as irony that she’s the one who gets cancer while Tobias, who appears to be a good dad but has no real goals he’s working towards, is the one who remains healthy as an ox. Regardless, neither character has any real stickiness to them, so it’s fitting that the best scene in the movie involves two characters beyond Almut and Tobias.

We Live in Time is so obviously trying to break your heart it doesn’t. As I was exiting my screening, I overheard a woman telling her friend: “There were a couple of times I could feel tears welling up, but no tear ever appeared.” That woman should be a critic.

It’s also a movie that is painful, maddeningly, slow. I don’t think cinematographer Stuart Bentley or editor Justine Wright employs slow motion in any of the scenes, yet the characters speak, act, and even think in half-time. Tobias stammers a lot, and it’s cute at first, but only because of the association viewers might be able to make between puppy-dog-looking men stammering in the presence of beautiful women in other, better movies. Same goes for Almut, who can talk a good game while giving come hither eyes, but not in any significant or standout way. Both characters trade on the hope that you’ve seen other movies like this one and will associate your affection for those movies here.

As for the time of the title, Tobias spends most of their pregnancy with a stopwatch around his neck, checking the duration of contractions. The cancer diagnosis reduces the time available to Almut. And there is a traffic jam when time is of the utmost importance. But beyond those, time doesn’t seem to hold any more significance to these two than it does for anyone else. The whole movie is like that.

We Live in Time (2024)
Directed by John Crowley
Written by Nick Payne
Produced by Adam Ackland, Leah Clarke, Guy Heeley
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh, Lee Braithwaite, Nikhil Parmar, Kerry Godliman
A24, Rated R, Running time 107 minutes, Premiered Sept. 7, 2024 at the Toronto International Film Festival

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