We Live in Time Review — TIFF 2024 (2025)

What if you had a chance to flash through every single important moment in your relationship, beginning to end, good and bad? That is the journey that We Live In Time took us on at TIFF 2024, and it created this beautiful story, not just of love, but of life.

We Live in Time follows the life of Tobias and Almut from the day they meet until the day they part. We follow them on a journey from lust to falling in love to building a life, and the inevitable end after Almut is diagnosed with stage three ovarian cancer. We Live in Time isn’t solely focused on Almut or on Tobias, but on both of their lives and emotions through every major moment they experience.

We Live in Time Review — TIFF 2024 (1)

These moments aren’t always the typical “big” life moments, either. First meetings, first times and first fights are all there, but we also get to see every small moment that either would look back on significantly. The first time Almut cooks Tobias eggs, celebrating victories, meeting families, it’s all there. Writer Nick Payne built this beautiful life and invited us to be a part of its most intimate interactions.

What is more moving is that though we got these flashes of vital moments in Tobias and Almuts relationship, we never see her death. Instead, writer Payne chose to focus on life, and how we carry on after death through nods to the past, and sharing in tradition and memories. We Live in Time has plenty of gut wrenching, tear-evoking moments, but the couple’s lives were so significant that we didn’t need to live through Almut’s death with them to feel it. We needed to keep living with Tobias and Ella. Life goes on, and the people we love live on through us.

We Live in Time was a beautiful story about life that was creatively told through fragments of time, with a cast who delivered a devastating but outstanding performances and I can’t recommend it enough.”

There are also themes of legacy carried out through Almut. When she is young and free, she isn’t even sure she wants to have children, but when faced with death, she makes choices that could affect her health to be able to leave a mark behind beyond being “someone’s dead fucking mum.” She discusses how not only is she afraid for herself and being remembered for nothing outside of being a mom, but also that she doesn’t want her daughter to think she just gave up on life after becoming a mother or getting sick.

The idea of becoming a mother to be nothingmore than that is terrifying to a lot of women, but grappling with leaving no mark behind for her daughter to be proud of is a very real, scary thought, and I say that as a mother myself.

We Live in Time Review — TIFF 2024 (2)

We Live in Time toys with the viewers’ emotions, bringing joy to sad moments. When Almut decides to shave her head everyone is laughing, smiling and taking photos. They include their small daughter and share the experience together. Though these are usually scenes filled with fear and sorrow, We Live in Time chooses to focus on the family, the time they have together and the love they share. This is carried on through the final scene, which I won’t spoil. We Live in Time shows us how the moments we share together transcend death.

Jumping through time is such a risky move, but We Live in Time expertly jumps back and forth in their relationship from beginning to end. Telling their story in fragments could have been jarring, but it felt like we were just carrying on through their memories as they would while looking back. The contrast between ending a happy memory and landing in a devastating one made feelings that much more extreme, and I think this is one of the best parts of We Live in Time. That journey through love, loss and life is beautifully executed.

We Live in Time toys with the viewers’ emotions, bringing joy to sad moments.”

But all of this would be nothing if it weren’t for Florence Pugh as Almut and Andrew Garfield as Tobias. The pair share a chemistry that feels decades old, connecting on a very deep level. There is a scene where no one speaks, Pugh just reacts with her eyes as she reads Tobias’ notes, and Garfield watches on with anticipation, even though I knew what was happening I was on the edge of my seat. Director John Crowley knew exactly what he was doing, and he had the right pair to pull it off.

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Normally, when there is a story about death, the person dying is the performance to watch. Though Pugh is perfect in her role, with her brash, hardened self-giving glimpses of vulnerability, it’s Garfield who magnificently wears his heart on his sleeve and steals every scene. Even his smallest reactions give us a peek at the world through his eyes. We see him meek and mild, furious and broken and completely elated, and there is never a moment where you aren’t hanging onto his every word and crying every tear alongside him.

This was my first official film during TIFF 2024 and between this and Young Werther, it has been a very strong start so far. We Live in Time was a beautiful story about life that was creatively told through fragments of time, with a cast who delivered a devastating but outstanding performances and I can’t recommend it enough. Bring tissues!

Check out more of CGMagazine’s TIFF 2024 coverage here throughout the festival.

We Live in Time Review — TIFF 2024 (2025)

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