The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 6 September 2024 and was released in the United States on 11 October 2024 by A24. It is scheduled to be released by StudioCanal in the United Kingdom on 1 January 2025.[4][5] It has grossed $31.9 million worldwide.
Plot
The film is presented in a nonlinear narrative.[6] The following is a linear plot summary.
Weetabix representative Tobias Durand, while out purchasing a pen to sign divorce papers served to him by his wife, wanders into the road and is struck by a car driven by Almut Brühl, a former figure skater turned Bavarian-fusion chef. At the hospital, Almut offers to treat Tobias and his wife to a meal at the restaurant she works at, though Tobias does not disclose his divorce to her. On the night of this dinner, Tobias, now separated, goes to the restaurant alone, informing Almut this time of his divorce. The two go to Almut's flat after dinner and have sex. They spend the following day together, with Almut cooking for Tobias, showing him the best way to crack an egg. They move in together soon afterwards.
Months later, after Almut had revealed kids weren’t really “her thing”, Tobias expresses to Almut his desire to one day have a family with her and that’s because he has begun to fall in love with her. She rebuffs him rudely, saying that she’s not somebody who makes that sort of a promise, and he leaves without saying a word. Later, at a baby shower for one of Almut's co-workers, Tobias visits and apologises to Almut for his insensitiveness, while also criticising the way she responded to him rudely. He once again professes his love to her, and how he had focused on looking ahead, rather than what they had right now, together, and they reconcile.
After getting pains in her abdomen, Almut discovers that she has ovarian cancer and explains to Tobias that her gynecologist has recommended she get a partial or full hysterectomy as part of the cancer treatment. Though Tobias intends to respect whatever Almut's decision, she chooses to undergo a partial hysterectomy, leaving her with the possibility for natural born children in the future. After treatment, her cancer goes into remission. After numerous subsequent attempts to conceive a child, Tobias and Almut are happy when she becomes pregnant. On New Year's Eve, she gives birth to a baby girl in a petrol station bathroom after her and Tobias’ car got stuck in a traffic jam on their way to the hospital.
Around three years later, Almut, now the head chef of her own higher-scale restaurant and having moved with her family to a small cottage and farm, begins feeling pains in her waist again. At the doctors, Almut and Tobias learn that her cancer has returned to stage 3, and that she would need to begin chemotherapy as soon as possible before any tumour removal surgery can be done, though there is still no guarantee of survival. Almut, hesitant to undergo treatment again, proposes living "six to eight amazing months" without any treatment, instead of spending her potential 12 months weak and unfit if the course of chemo was unsuccessful. They explain the situation to their young daughter, Ella. Tobias also proposes to Almut around this time she decides to undergo treatment.
Around the same time as her diagnosis, Almut is invited by her colleague Simon to participate in the Bocuse d'Or, a prestigious cooking competition. Despite her training conflicting with both her treatments as well as her wedding, she agrees to compete; Almut and her commis Jade win the UK selections and reach the finals, which take place in Italy some months later, now on the day of Almut and Tobias's proposed wedding ceremony. It’s around this time, Almut and Tobias are told by her doctor that Almut’s cancer has not shrunk with the current treatment. Almut begins training for the Bocuse d'Or Finals in secret. Upon discovering this, Tobias angrily scolds her for choosing the competition, and keeping it a secret, over focusing on her treatment, life and family, and Almut responds that she would rather her daughter remember her as an accomplished chef who didn’t give up and remembered her mum with pride, rather than merely someone she watched fall ill and die. Tobias accepts this & begrudgingly cancels their wedding and agrees with Almut to continue training for the finals.
In Italy, in June, Tobias and Ella attend the finals of the Bocuse d'Or and watch Almut cook. Towards the competition’s end Almut becomes weaker, beginning to falter at the end of the plating of the last dish, she lets Jade take control, and they successfully finish in time. Almut takes in the moment and then chooses to promptly leaves with Tobias and their daughter Ella, afterwards taking them all ice skating (something Almut couldn’t bring herself to do after she herself used to go to the rink with her own father.)
Some time later, Tobias and Ella return to their home after visiting their garden’s chicken coop, alongside their new dog, which Almut and Tobias had considered earlier getting for Ella to help her psychologically cope with a death. Tobias then teaches his daughter how to crack an egg, just as her mother had taught him.
Nick Payne developed the script for We Live in Time with StudioCanal. The film was executive produced by Benedict Cumberbatch with his London-based company SunnyMarch; other producers are Leah Clarke, Adam Ackland for SunnyMarch, Guy Heeley for Shoebox Films, as well as Ron Halpern and Joe Naftalin for StudioCanal.[9]
The film's score was produced by Bryce Dessner.[13]Romy and Sampha performed the film's credits song, "I'm on Your Team".[14]
Release
In May 2023, A24 acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film.[15]StudioCanal handled worldwide sales and will distribute directly in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, the Benelux, Australia and New Zealand.[16] A first look image of the film displaying the leads sharing a "cute scene" became an internet meme due to the presence of an "ugly carousel horse" in frame.[17][18][19][20]
We Live in Time premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 6 September 2024.[21] For its European premiere, it was selected to close the official selection of the 72nd San Sebastián International Film Festival, playing out of competition.[22] A24 scheduled the film for a limited theatrical release in the United States on 11 October 2024 and for a wide theatrical release from 18 October 2024.[23] The film will be released theatrically in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 1 January 2025.[24]Beta Fiction Spain will release theatrically the film in Spain on 3 January 2025.[22]
Reception
Box office
As of 12 December 2024[update], We Live in Time has grossed $24.7million in the United States and Canada, and $7.2million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $31.9million.[2][3]
In its limited opening weekend in the United States and Canada, the film made $232,615 from five theaters, an average of $46,523 per venue.[25] Expanding to 985 theaters the following weekend the film made $4.2 million, finishing in fifth.[26] Playing in 2,968 theaters in its third weekend, the film made $4.8 million and remained in fifth place.[27] The film then made $3.5 million[28] and $2.2 million in its fourth and fifth weekends, respectively.[29]
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 78% of 171 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's consensus reads: "Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh's palpable chemistry will snatch audiences' hearts before breaking them in We Live in Time, a powerful melodrama that uses its nonlinear structure to thoughtfully explore grief."[30]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 58 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[31] Audiences surveyed by PostTrak gave the film an 83% overall positive score, with 63% saying they would definitely recommend it.[27]
Benjamin Lee, for The Guardian, gave the film 4 stars out of 5 and wrote, "I found its throwback nature to be immensely charming, a big, full-throated romantic drama that knows exactly how to make us swoon as well as make us sad. I hope there’s time for more like it."[32]
In her review for The New York Times, Manolha Dargis praised the character of Almut, and Pugh's performance but found the film only "trie[d] to be modern".[33]
Brianna Zigler, writing for The A.V. Club, called the film "unimaginative and weirdly regressive," and opined that Garfield and Pugh, while "likable and sweet" were also "thin" and "boring", and were not convincing in their depiction of their characters' relationship. Zigler also did not think Almut's decisions regarding her cancer and motherhood were plausible.[34]
Brian Tallerico at RogerEbert.com, who gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, said that Pugh and Garfield elevated what was otherwise a shallow script, and singled out Garfield in particular as the standout performance. On the nonlinear narrative, Tallerico thought that while appearing to be random at first glance, it exhibited "an emotional logic" upon a closer examination, in a way that evoked the way a person may remember key moments in their life as it comes to an end. Tallerico was uncertain if there were not too many time jumps, commenting, "The chronological jumble will be a dealbreaker for some people who like their weepers straightforward", but speculated that the challenge in making this structure work is what attracted the actors to the project in the first place.[35]
Reviewing the film for Variety, Peter Debrugge thought the sequences in which the scenes were laid out was arbitrary, and in a way that made mapping out nonlinear narrative difficult. Debrugge wondered if there was a "way to unscramble" the film.[36] Glenn Whipp of the Los Angeles Times had a similar appraisal of the sequencing of the scenes, which he felt did not elevate the film's concept. While Whipp praised Pugh and Garfield, he felt that the film's execution of the non-linear structure distanced the audience from the two performers, rendering Almut and Tobias as concepts rather than characters.[37]
