We Live in Time Parent Guide

It’s a decision no one should have to make. Especially not when they are thirty-something, raising a child, and on the brink of a brilliant culinary career. Almut (Florence Pugh) has just been told that she has Stage 3 ovarian cancer. Again. And because it’s a recurrence, the treatment must be aggressive. As she and her partner, Tobias (Andrew Garfield) grapple with the bad news, they must decide just how much suffering she’s willing to barter for extra time.

Time is a distinct element in this film, as the movie whips back and forth around the characters’ lives. (Editing-in-a-fan is the less tactful way I would describe it.) As the scenes jump about, we see the couple meet accidentally – literally when Almut hits Tobias with her car. They banter, fall into bed, deal with cancer, have a child, deal with cancer again (although we don’t see any of this happen in chronological order). Through it all, Almut buzzes with life, optimism, and joy until she hits the hard wall of time. She has too little of it to fulfill her dreams and the harshness of that immutable fact is wrenching.

Regular readers of this site will know that I hate “romantic weepies”, as the genre is sometimes known. I hate feeling like my emotions are being manipulated for studio profits. I hate holding back tears, I hate foggy glasses, I hate that sick knot in the gut I get when I see the characters suffering and I feel my tears building. I went into this film with a feeling of dread – but I didn’t cry. Not. One. Tear. So why not?

I suspect this film is less emotionally wrenching than other weepies because it’s all about future loss; not present loss. Tobias and Almut know she’s going to die and they argue about how she’ll spend her remaining time, but there is no physical decline and there are no tearful goodbyes. In comparison, the 2021 release, Our Friend depicts an ugly death from ovarian cancer, and the toll it takes on the entire family. Shadowlands is a wrenching cancer film, with loss complicated by a sense of time taken for granted and love found too late. Compared to these films, listening to Almut insist that she wants to be “more than her daughter’s dead mother” doesn’t pack the same emotional punch. It’s honest, yes. And it’s sad, yes. But Tobias and Ella seem to be bystanders in Almut’s cancer journey, not fellow passengers. She doesn’t understand that and Tobias fails to articulate it, and that’s the emotional hole at the center of this film.

Also problematic in the script is the barrage of negative content. The film contains over five dozen profanities, 39 of which are sexual expletives, which feels excessive for a sensitive drama. Also excessive is the movie’s sexual content, which includes passionate sex scenes with female breast nudity. Florence Pugh’s breasts don’t get the screen time they had in Oppenheimer, but this is still unnecessary. As I keep saying, this is yet another film that could be easily written and edited down to a PG-13 rating, but Restricted ratings are apparently increasingly desirable in the eyes of Hollywood studios. I’m afraid that the only way to change it is through financial pressure: If you don’t like nudity and excess cussing in movies, vote with your wallet and see something else.