Illustration by Michael DiMilo
Measured by the Heart: Review of We Live in Time
★★★1/2
By Geoff Carter
The tragic love story has been with us forever. From the star-crossed lovers in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet(and West Side Story) to Love Story to The Notebook to Titanic to Brokeback Mountain—and many, many more—these tales of love and loss and regret draw audiences like flies to honey, and they have done so for centuries. Perhaps it’s the element of catharsis or sense of validation or feelings of connection that makes these narratives so compelling, but whatever the reasons, their appeal is undeniable. The Hallmark Channel produces specializes in these films—one might argue it’s the same film over and over, but that’s a topic for a different day.
We Live in Time is a modern iteration of the traditional love lost narrative. It features all the traditional—and sometimes overly cutesy—tropes of the genre, but the film does attempt to stretch our perceptions of attraction, mortality, memory, and love with a fragmented non-linear structure. In other words, chronology becomes insignificant, even vestigial to the tale of this particular relationship.
Tobias (Andrew Garfield) an amiable young man who works for a cereal company meets master chef Almut (Florence Pugh) in the emergency room after she hits him with her car. This happenstance meeting is—because of the film’s non-linear narrative—not presented until after the audience has been introduced to the couple after they had been living together.
The story jumps from their home together to their early relationship to a time when Tobias is living at home to the two discussing what course they should take after Almut receives a cancer diagnosis. Interspersed—jumbled—among these threads are Almut’s pregnancy, their daughter, and finally—in the more linear conclusion to the narrative, Almut’s decision to enter an international cooking competition.
As the viewer reconstructs the bits and pieces of the relationship into a logical chronology, events happening in the future tend to color our perceptions of the present. We know early on that Almut is going to get cancer. Our feelings about Almut’s rather rude assertion to Tobias she does not want children is colored by sequences of the couple’s difficulties conceiving and later (not literally) witnessing Almut’s rather gargantuan pregnancy.
Instead of discovering elements of character (like Almut’s competitiveness) gradually as we get to know her, (as we would in a linear narrative), we are exposed to aspects of their relationship after being informed of their predilections and their past. The effect of this is the events of relationship telescoped through time is an imitation of memory. After all, our remembered past is determined by everything that came before it and colored by everything that came after it.
The effect of this narrative technique in We Live in Time is to create a gestalt of the relationship. This does seem to culminate in the one section in the film which is linear, Almut’s recurrence of cancer and her determination to compete in the prestigious Bocuse D’or international cooking competition. This begs the question of why the filmmakers chose to preface these final wrenching sequences with the non-linear collection of memories. Wouldn’t a consistent linear structure have told the story just as effectively?
If the filmmakers’ purpose in using the non-linear narrative was to create a sort of romantic scrapbook, like Annie Hall or The Notebook, love stories whose thematics seem to be about loss and sacrifice, respectively, then We Live in Timemisses the mark. This is not a scrapbook, a collection of memories that lead to a conclusion. It is a collection of memories that lead back to themselves. In a weird way—except for the final linear section—We Live in Time is a kind of circular structure that does reflect actual memory. When we remember loved ones, we tend to go back to the same places in our minds—or our hearts.
There are several motifs in We Live in Time that reflect this. The first is eggs. At the very beginning of the film, we see Almut jogging, going back to her beautiful pastoral farmhouse, collecting eggs, and cooking them up for Tobias. In other sequence, when they are first getting together, she demonstrates the best way to crack and separate eggs to Tobias, and then later, near the end of the film, we see Tobias teaching his daughter Bella how her mother used to cook eggs.
Another motif is the pregnancy. At various points in the film, we see a very, very pregnant Almut, their struggles to conceive, and the rather unorthodox birthing scene. Of course, this would have been one of the central events in Tobias’s memories of his beloved Almut—which begs another question. Is the film’s reconstruction of memories from Tobias’s point-of-view? Considering Almut’s fate (not really a spoiler—this is a tragic love story), who else would be recalling these events?
This is particularly interesting when we consider Tobias’ secondary role in the narrative. Compared to Almut, he seems nondescript and rather bland, almost as bland as the cereal company he works for. This is Almut’s movie, but it is drawn from Tobias’s memories.
For all of its narrative complexities, the foundation of this film rests on the performances of Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh. Chemistry is an overused descriptor when it comes to big screen romances, but these two do share something special. Both are very subtle actors, and in this case, a glance, a raised eyebrow, or a slight headshake speak volumes. Pugh’s presence is magnetic and her absorption with Garfield seems absolute.
Garfield does everything he can with the role given him. It is in many respects, a supporting role for Pugh, but he fills Tobias with a vulnerability and tenderness that is both endearing and admirable. He is devoted to Almut and the daughter.
At the end, when Almut tells Tobias she is entering the Bocuse D’or in order to give their daughter something to remember other than a mother wasting away with cancer, it does beg the question (again—sorry) of whether having a world-class chef and championship ice-skater as a mother wouldn’t be enough for any daughter to admire. Maybe it wasn’t enough for Almut.
At any rate, We Live in Time is at first a bittersweet love story but ultimately an examination—although a rather opaque one—of memory, experience, and appreciation of what gifts love has left for us all to share.
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