On paper, We Dwell in Time appears thoughtfully formulated to be the right tearjerker for at present. John Crowley, the celebrated helmer of the beautiful Saoirse Ronan romance Brooklyn, groups with heralded actors/web darlings Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield in a weepy romance of wooing and tragic loss. And but, whereas peppered with intercourse scenes and adoring close-ups, this isn’t a sizzling and even sweaty embrace of lust and love, however a soggy handshake of a movie that underwhelms regardless of its star energy.
It’s stunning how We Dwell in Time had the items that ought to’ve been the stuff of Oscar acclaim and viewers adoration. However regardless of bringing collectively two of the most popular younger actors at present working, Crowley’s film is astonishingly middling, set aside from forgettable fare solely by a time-skipping gadget that feels inexplicable at greatest and irritating at worst.
We Dwell in Time‘s plotting gimmick doesn’t work.
We Dwell in Time begins with a pair already so nicely established that they’ve a comfortable morning routine. Formidable chef Almut (Pugh) goes on an extended picturesque run by way of a stunning forest, foraging components alongside the way in which to make use of in her subsequent culinary experiment. She returns residence to a beautiful cottage and will get to work in her fairly kitchen, whereas her loving husband Tobias (Garfield) continues to be sleeping comfortably of their mattress.
No sooner is their bliss established over a breakfast in mattress than the film leaps again to earlier than they met, when he was only a unhappy sack on the point of divorce together with his first spouse. There’s thrilling chemistry following a literal automotive crash of a meet-cute, with Pugh’s signature appeal sparking towards Garfield’s unflappable wholesomeness. Different moments, like their a lot memed journey on a merry-go-round, are winsome. However they’re tossed into this movie with little regard to pacing or theme or any form of obvious logic.
Regardless of the flashes again and ahead, their story is easy, the stuff of weepy seaside reads. They fall in love whereas she is constructing her first restaurant, and he’s coping with the top of his first marriage. They practically break up realizing they’ve completely different expectations round kids. However they are going to overcome these points, as they are going to her first battle with most cancers and its brutal chemo remedies. The primary plot of the movie takes place as soon as they’ve had their daughter and are confronted with the recurrence of the most cancers, extra aggressive than earlier than. The query turns into, will Almut endure one other spherical of body-wilting chemo that will not even save her life? Or will she reject therapy to benefit from the time she has left?
The second most cancers battle alone may have made an attention-grabbing film. However as a result of this screenplay goals to loop back-and-forth to indicate the breath of their total relationship,We Dwell in Time feels extra like postcards of a relationship than a portrait that’s fleshed out or remotely charming. There’s so little sense of cohesion from sequence to sequence, it’s laborious to get emotionally invested in these characters, even in case you’re somebody who has been a fan of the actors, as I’m.
Mashable High Tales
Florence Pugh shines. Andrew Garfield is stranded.
That is the form of function that appears good for Florence Pugh, as it’s a lady who’s coping with conflicting feelings that demand she smile and frown with equal ardour. Almut loves her husband and her baby, but additionally desires to be extra than simply “someone’s dying mum.” So when a possibility to compete in a high-level cooking competitors arises, she will be able to’t deliver herself to show it down, even when it means pushing her physique to its limits and spending much less time at residence.
Once more, this may’ve made a compelling story by itself. However We Dwell in Time goals to create some kind of steadiness by additionally following Tobias, who has a lot much less to do. The place Almut is established as having wishes exterior of her marriage, her husband exists solely to mope when she disappoints him. He’s simply Ken, an adjunct to hold on her like an anchor. Which is wild as a result of Tobias’s arguments within the movie — for honesty of their marriage and for making an attempt a brand new spherical of chemo — are legitimate, but undermined by a plotting that treats him as a clingy impediment to Almut’s skilled goals.
Whereas Garfield delivers a soulful efficiency with huge watery eyes, the scattered construction of the movie provides him little to construct on. Tobias is so thinly realized that the viewers is left to fill within the gaps, maybe with prior appreciation for Garfield or a common affection for Nicholas Sparks–model romances the place the besotted lovers are doomed to be separated by dying. In both case, the movie by itself is frustratingly fractured.
Crowley fails to raise a lackluster script.
To be clear, We Dwell in Time is just not the worst film of the yr. That’d be the repulsive and abysmal relaunch of The Crow. It’s not the most important bomb of the yr, which seems to be to be Eli Roth’s messy adaptation of Borderlands. It’s not even a film arguably enhanced by some kind of scandal, like Pugh’s Don’t Fear Darling or 2024’s different latest weepy It Ends With Us. In actual fact, We Dwell in Time will probably be bolstered by the unimaginable chemistry its stars are sharing on pink carpets and cheeky promotional interviews. However by itself, this film is way lower than the sum of its elements.
The most cancers story may have been sufficient to maintain it. Maybe with flashbacks to bolster our understanding not solely of this {couples}’ love but additionally the hardships they’ve traversed earlier than. It may have been a carefully balanced story from each views, exploring how typically even the selection of life or dying is achingly sophisticated. However Crowley’s execution of Nick Payne’s woe-infested scribblings of a screenplay manages neither. The time jumps really feel like artless novelty, making an attempt to distract from how threadbare this story really is — notably Almut’s first spherical of most cancers, which makes up three brief scenes.
Whereas Pugh and Garfield give their all to Almut and Tobias, the chaotic smattering of scenes offers no construct in emotional rigidity. In actual fact, leaping from the couple already collectively to not having met undercuts scenes of nervous flirtation with inevitability. It’s like for the whole lot which may work on this movie, there’s one thing else that works towards it. Sequences like their first dialog in a hospital hallway and a beginning sequence wildly alive with power provide moments of hope that Crowley and firm will reduce their method by way of the messy plot gadget of time-skipping to hook into one thing unshakably profound.
However in the long run, We Dwell in Time is profoundly mediocre, missing the verve, sexiness, and uncooked human emotion we’ve come to anticipate from Pugh and Garfield.
We Dwell in Time was reviewed out of its world premiere on the Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition. The film will open in theaters within the U.S. on Oct. 11.
