Romance dramas are complicated to pull off. You need actors who seem to have genuine chemistry. You need a script that is powerful and heartwarming and, at the same time, manages to stay clear of being too sentimental. You also need a director who can balance the touching with the heartbreaking without making it too schmaltzy. Thankfully, We Live In Time manages to do all of this, and you end up with a film that captures the love of two people while simultaneously making the whole thing believable and palatable.

Talented chef Almut runs newly divorced Tobias over. This is the start of a romance that begins slowly and builds as the pair experiences life’s ups and downs. She has her own restaurant and opportunities to fulfil her cooking desires, while he wants a family. Yet tragedy hits this young couple, and their lives take on a new dimension.

Director John Crowley, who made Brooklyn, and writer Nick Payne, who wrote the script for the 2017 drama The Sense of an Ending, have produced a non-linear story, meaning that it doesn’t go from A to Z but jumps across time, showing events out of sequence. It would have been far too easy to show the lives of these two characters as they go through every day in the correct timeline. Instead, this starts off slightly annoying, but once you understand the nature of the film, you accept it and find that, in fact, it works exceptionally well and manages to water down the tragedy that you know is coming.

Unlike a film such as Love Story, which has a soft-focus feel and will flash up near the end that you will cry, this is a far more down-to-earth presentation of a love story. While the two characters come from different worlds, they seem to fit perfectly, and they have all the issues that young lovers face: decisions about their future, how they interact with family and friends and ultimately, what their lives will be like when something tragic happens.

This film isn’t about tragedy. It’s about hope and how resilient humans can be when they find someone they genuinely care for. It has plenty of moments when you are smiling and swept along by Almut and Tobias’s world. A series of scenes when Almut is ready to give birth, leading to a hilarious scene in a petrol station, provides the film with realness, honesty, and some well-needed humour. Even the moments when Almut gets to cook in a huge international event, and her relationship with her commis chef add another level to how much Crowley and Payne inject into the story to make us feel these are real people, not just individuals we can’t relate to. There isn’t a moment in this film that makes you think you don’t believe a word of these two characters.

What really helps, however, is the performance of the two leads. Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh are excellent. As individuals, they are well-established actors who you can rely on to give solid performances in anything they touch. Here, however, they are electric. It is genuinely like watching two people fall in love and live the lives they were destined to follow. The chemistry is outstanding, and seeing two actors connect so well is hard to remember. Garfield, like Tobias, is slightly bumbling and brimming with nervous energy, but there is kindness, passion, and a longing for the pair to work. On the other hand, Pugh is the one with the drive and the desire to succeed, yet these two just click. It is worth the ticket just to see these two working together.

We Live In Time isn’t the film that works for me usually. I find romances sometimes a little hard to swallow. Yet this manages to hit the spot perfectly. It is emotional, but because of the way the non-linear style is played out, it dampens the impact. While others were weeping around me, it was incredibly moving but didn’t set the waterworks off. It is still an extraordinarily skilful and powerful tale, and I liked being in the company of Garfield and Pugh. I hope this isn’t the last time they work together.

4 out of 5

Director: John Crowley

Starring: Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh, Grace Delaney, Lee Braithwaite, Aofie Hinds, Adam James, Douglas Hodges, Niamh Cusack, Kerry Godliman, Nikhil Parmar, Lucy Briers

Written by: Nick Payne

Running Time: 108 mins

Cert: 15

Release date: 1st January 2025