My problem with “We live in time”

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus.

This article was written by a student author from the chapter “Her Campus at Lasell.”

I went in We live in time at a free screening without even knowing what it was about. The film started off really well, starring the talented Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, who gave just as great performances in this film as any other. There were some reasonably funny lines and scenes, and overall I was excited to see how their relationship would develop, but the longer the film went on, the less connected I felt to the characters. I was just waiting for the plot to come, shock me and worry me again, but when the credits rolled I realized it was just a predictable disappointment :/

Warning: This will contain spoilers!!

We live in time is a film about Tobias and Almut, who get along unexpectedly well after Almut hits Tobias with her car and takes him to the hospital. Almut has suffered from ovarian cancer in the past but overcame it with chemotherapy procedures. Unfortunately, it eventually comes back to her and she decides that instead of another year of tumultuous procedures that may not even work, she wants to live her life to the fullest in her final months.

The concept makes it clear that the producers want you to cry while watching it, especially because at the screening I attended, theater staff handed out tissues before the film began. However, the film is written in a non-linear structure in which the scenes jump back and forth seemingly at random. I’m not opposed to this structure, but it has to serve a purpose. For example the film Eternal sunshine of the flawless mind uses non-chronological time jumping but is necessary and beautifully curated to unravel the mystery of what happened between Clementine and Joel. It was an integral part of the story. However, in We live in timethere was no secret. The time jumps were used to spoil the film itself, so we were always ahead of the characters. We knew the beginning of the end completely, with no twists or averting expectations, before we even saw them meet. It completely destroyed the build-up arc that is absolutely necessary in a romance film. Because all it is is a romance film, which is pretty generic for the genre, and while it still could have worked in that role, they chose to implement a gimmick to create a theme around time and “life “flies by” to make the film seem more interesting than it really is.

I think this also has to do with another problem I had: I couldn’t identify with or empathize with the characters as the film progressed. Part of it definitely has to do with the failure of time, which made me feel like I wasted time watching them fall in love. I can admit that there were sweet scenes between them; The work scene was stressful yet endearing, but still I didn’t really believe their relationship and it felt superficial. Not something like a deep “unconditional love despite death.”