When did Hollywood get to squeamish about the tearjerker? After all, Melpomene and Thalia – the crying and laughing masks of theatre – have long been visual shorthand for the dramatic arts, and were how the studios made bank. Yet some time after Love Story, Thalia got stuffed in a cupboard and “pretty people being sad” became passé. Such stories either had to be queer subversion (Brokeback Mountain), dressed in spectacle (Titanic), or animated (the soul-rending first 15 minutes of Up). You can make the audience laugh, scream, or even retch, but somehow the joy of a good old cathartic sob seems off limits.
Luckily, nobody told Nick Payne when he wrote unabashed romantic weepie We Live in Time. Better known as a playwright for works like the Tony-nominated Constellations than for scripting films like The Sense of an Ending, Payne goes straight for the heart with the story of Tobias (Garfield) and Almut (Pugh). They’re a very average couple in many ways: thirtysomethings who’ve been through their share of relationships before they meet each other. He works for cereal company Weetabix and is going through a divorce, and she’s a rising chef who’s been putting her job first. Their meet-cute is suitably catastrophic, but it’s not the first time we see them. Payne tells their story out of order – or rather, out of linear chronology. Instead, what he does is find resonances and loops in their shared life, and he does so in such a gentle way that it’s never going to baffle the audience. Medical procedures, for both life-affirming and life-threatening reasons, play against each other. Conversations – about what they want, about commitment, about kids, about career – interweave in a way that doesn’t ever feel forced.
It’s a style of storytelling that requires a deft touch. Fortunately, after wading through two literary adaptations that felt like award-season bait – the hackneyed Brooklyn and mawkish The Goldfinch – director John Crowley takes a few steps back and lets the story and the performances breathe. He allows the audience to become compassionate, sympathetic observers to this unremarkable couple and their very everyday relationship. As a result, We Live in Time feels grand and romantic in quiet, identifiable ways.
But none of this works if the audience doesn’t fall in love with Tobias and Almut as much as they do with each other. The simple fact is that Garfield and Pugh are absolutely adorable as they navigate the complexities of being together. Payne’s non-linear script makes it clear that they will be together, so there’s none of that forced will-they-won’t-they plotting that can get in the way of these stories. There’s so much more space for the how and the why of them coming together: when the emotional depth charges hidden within their lives go off, they’re so much more impactful because you legitimately care about them. Pugh keys perfectly into Almut’s spikily charming persona, underlaid by an almost begrudging warmth towards the awkward but devoted Tobias. As for Tobias himself, Garfield channels a very particular aspect of British masculinity, of quiet nods, furrowed brows, and the firm belief in the power of a good list.
Maybe it is the British setting that allows for the tearjerker romance. There’s a certain understatement and reserve that keeps the drama intimate even when life events threaten to blow everything up. Crowley doesn’t blink at the cradle-to-grave graphic intimacy of Payne’s script, and in Garfield and Pugh he finds a duo who understand the deceptions and devotions of a beautifully flawed relationship. Watch ’em and weep, kids.
This article appears in October 18 • 2024.
