Irish director John Crowley has fashioned Nick Payne's unconventionally structured tale of love and loss, We Live in Time, into a warm film of tender moments between Almut, an ambitious chef (Florence Pugh), and Tobias, a recently divorced, unassuming information technologist for a cereal company (Andrew Garfield).
She's a decidedly alpha restaurateur; he's a retiring beta who is smitten with her dynamism. They have wonderfully civilized conversations and galvanic sex; they court and soon have merged their lives. All of this is shown in jumbled pieces, which seems to be a narrative choice by more and more arthouse moviemakers.
In time, Almut develops uterine cancer and chooses rather than have a complete hysterectomy to undergo a partial in hopes of possibly having a child with Tobias, a prospect she rejected out-of-hand earlier in their relationship.
They have a daughter, Ella (Grace Delaney), and when Ella is three or four, Almut's cancer returns.
Almut proposes to Tobias, in one of the picture's beautifully crafted exchanges, that they consider not undergoing six or eight months of chemo and surgery and the wretchedness that comes with the treatment. Instead, might they spend whatever time she has left living life with abandon.
The story progresses through the period after the couple's decision, their conflicts and clashes, personal revelations and disappointments. Nearly every moment feels real, every misstep authentic, and the final scenes both heartbreaking and, surprisingly, life affirming.
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