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‘We Live in Time’ Review: You Can’t Scramble a Love Story Without Breaking a Few Eggs


Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield co-star in 'We Live in Time,' a tragic romance with genuine chemistry and the most contrived timeline imaginable.

In “ We Live in Time,” John Crowley has made what’s meant to be a greatest hits version of your typical romantic comedy, serving up all the key scenes from Almut and Tobias’ relationship — meeting one another’s families, the marriage proposal, parenthood, divorce, cancer diagnoses and so on — just not in that order. The director effectively discovered the then-future Spider-man star, first casting him as a juvenile delinquent in 2007’s “Boy A.” That means “We Live in Time” marks a reunion: a more mature project for both of them, but also a more manipulative one, as Crowley counts partly on his two gifted leads, but also on Payne’s capacity to write the most adorable version of every important step in their relationship. That’s a clue to the logic that could be operating beneath the movie’s kooky chronology, since Tobias clings to memories (the flashbacks may well be his, told mostly through his perspective) whereas Almut insists on seizing each remaining moment (her commitment to a culinary competition drives the plot forward).

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