The film starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh is out in UK cinemas now.
The Guardian: *** “Pugh’s muscular, sensual, charismatic presence packs a punch in every scene; she looks as though she could head-butt the camera and let you carry on watching the scene through a cracked lens without missing a beat. Garfield is more yieldingly gentle; he has many closeups in which his faltering smile seems on the verge of evolving into a baffled frown, or a laugh, or tears.”
The Independent: *** “Yet because of the way we leap in and out of these people’s lives, there’s usually very little sense of how Tobias and Almut mutate in the face of love, and Payne overcompensates by pumping in slightly absurd conflicts to get his point across.”
Empire: **** “More important than the when is the what. Nick Payne’s screenplay delves into a myriad of relationship issues that are rich in their complications, from decision-making over having children, to living for the future versus living for the now, and more. The film is at its best when it marinates in those difficult conversations, its non-judgement of its characters allowing for decisions and moments that are as selfish as they are honest, real, and human.”
BFI.org.uk: “That this film remains eminently watchable, and, ultimately, disarming to all but the most hardened hearts, is largely due to Pugh, and Garfield (here reteaming with Crowley after their 2007 breakthrough, Boy A). Both actors are Marvel heroes, Oscar-nominees and homegrown stars big enough to anchor the story’s more fanciful contrivances. But they’re also both relatable and recognisably down-to-earth enough to picture doing such everyday British dating activities as larking about a south London fairground or sharing Jaffa Cakes in the bath.”
RogerEbert.com: *** “There are times when one can almost visually see the buttons being pushed in “We Live in Time.” It’s not many films that can successfully weave two cancer diagnoses, a birth, a budding romance, and end of life into one film and NOT feel like it’s playing with the emotions of the audience. But I suspect that the people for whom this movie was made won’t care. There’s a reason we keep coming back to this dramatic subgenre, either lucky that we too have found the love of our lives or hoping that we’ll have a meet-cute to match Almut and Tobias. Maybe without the car accident.”
The Irish Times: *** “After the unmanageable catastrophe of The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt’s book was never going to generate a digestible film – John Crowley, who broke through with Brooklyn close to a decade ago, is back on solidish ground with this competent, if drippily insubstantial, romantic drama of the old school. We will say little more positive than that.”
The Telegraph: * “They’re usually two of the most dependable young stars around, but in this lumbering film Pugh and Garfield have little to no chemistry.”
Vulture.com: “The film’s constant leaps back and forth along its storyline are presumably meant to drive home the idea that time never seems to be enough, that these people are doomed by the unanticipated brevity of their life together. (Of course, the jumps also help obscure the fact that the movie doesn’t have much of a narrative; it’s basically Love Story without the class consciousness and with a bizarre high-end international cooking competition tacked on.)”