Well isn’t this the most upbeat disease film ever! Most of the films in this genre end with a weepfest; We Live in Time ends with a best chef competition. Seriously. No hospital scene. No extended weeping. No lingering in graveyards (not much, at least). Why, you could almost imagine that Almut Brühl (Florence Pugh) doesn’t die at all.
But she does.
In fact, that’s the point.
It’s hardly a giveaway; you kind of need to know that going in. This is a tears movie. We meet a heroine who is going to die. Period. Almut Brühl has Stage-Death Ovarian Cancer. She ain’t coming back from that. I’d call it a spoiler but this genre isn’t about plot, necessarily; it is about emotion. We know Almut is gonna die; can the film make you weep?
I daresay it can.
Tobias Durand (Andrew Garfield) and Almut shared a fairly unique meetcute: she hits him with a car. Tobias was staying in a hotel for business when his (then) wife sent him the divorce papers. He was out collecting a pen to sign them properly when Almut ran him over.
That’s one to tell the kids about, huh? Or kid; they just have the one. It’s kind of a big deal in the film. We Live in Time is quite an apt title for a film that jumps all over the place. In one moment, Almut, Tobias, and child are all helping mommy shave her head; in the next Tobias is giving up on their relationship five, six, seven (?) years previous. The film wants you to know exactly how this couple got together, exactly how they felt about child-bearing, and exactly how talented Almut is (world class chef and -once upon a time- world class figure skater).
Conversely, the film was kinda sketchy when it came to the details of how Almut would die. In fact, early on, an immediate juxtaposition of scenes baffled 
me: in the first, Almut is clearly pregnant, in the next, she has severe abdominal pain – I scrawled in my notes that I’d mistaken pregnancy for a stomach tumor, when in fact the film had simply switched moments in time and hadn’t left enough clues for me to figure that out until later on.
Hence, We Live in Time can be a very frustrating film. Every new scene demands you reevaluate where you are on the timeline and how you and the players should be feeling about it. Still, the film was moving, and I understand the logic behind keeping a weepfest upbeat through selective editing. This doesn’t explain where the genuine plot went awry more than once. C’mon film, do you really see this couple being uncommunicative about present aspirations and future milestones? In addition, I thought it completely unnecessary to make Almut a world class chef. Would we not care about her otherwise? That seems silly, and yet We Live in Time forgoes the melodrama of cancer in favor of the melodrama of Eurovision, except for food.
We Live in Time has essentially one goal: to make you care enough about Almut, Tobias, and child to have you weeping by the end of the film. This is achieved, so I cannot really fault the movie for lack of delivery. Also, I cannot say it was difficult to watch thanks to 80% of scenes that had nothing whatsoever to do with cancer. So, I’m not going to pan it, but I do think this film is much more suited for people who love to weep at films (and care little about the details) than standard movie goers. I leave you all with one open question: What drives an actor to make a film like this? There are no wrong answers, but I’d love to hear more opinions than my own on the subject.
There once was a woman with cancer
When Death called, she hadn’t an answer
But dying’s no fun
On celluloid, son
So let’s make this a quality romancer
Rated R, 107 Minutes
Director: John Crowley
Writer: Nick Payne
Genre: Movies to weep to
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who love losing it at the theater
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Have you never a drawn-out disease film before? This stuff ain’t for novices
