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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteWe Live in Time is a romantic drama about a couple whose decade together is shown out of sequence. Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield give its shifting chronology warmth and friction, but the film’s emotional impact depends on whether its time jumps deepen the relationship—or make the intended heartbreak too visible.
What is We Live in Time about?
Directed by John Crowley and written by Nick Payne, the 2024 film follows Almut (Pugh) and Tobias (Garfield) from an unexpected meeting through dating, family life and Almut’s cancer experience. A24 describes it as a “decade-spanning, deeply moving romance”; that is the studio’s framing, while the film itself is more interested in how a shared life is remembered and valued when its future feels uncertain.
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The story includes illness, grief and loss. Those themes give the romance serious weight, so this is not a lighthearted date-night choice for every viewer. The film is a drama, not medical guidance.
Why does the story jump around in time?
Rather than follow the relationship year by year, We Live in Time moves among episodes from different points in Almut and Tobias’s life. TIME calls the screenplay’s approach “mix-and-match, rather than linear,” and the BFI describes three timelines. The structure asks viewers to piece together how the couple arrived at each moment instead of treating their relationship as a straight progression.
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#1 Best Overall
- Factory sealed DVD
At its best, that arrangement makes ordinary intimacy feel layered: a tender or funny exchange carries the knowledge of what comes before and after it, even when the film has not yet explained the chronology. The jumps also prevent the story from becoming a simple checklist of courtship, parenthood and illness. We see a relationship as a collection of remembered moments, not just milestones.
There is a cost to that design. By placing emotionally charged scenes beside lighter ones, the film can signal the feeling it wants before the characters’ choices have fully earned it. Some transitions land as discovery; others feel conspicuous, as if the editing is underlining the coming grief. Whether the structure works may depend on how readily you accept a film that guides your emotions through contrast and anticipation.
Rank #2
Do Pugh and Garfield carry the romance?
They make the relationship’s appeal legible in small exchanges: teasing, impatience, affection and the practical negotiations of building a life together. Their performances give the shifts in time a human center, so Almut and Tobias feel like people with a history rather than figures arranged to illustrate a theme. The film’s warmth and humor matter because they make its painful material more than a succession of solemn scenes.
The characters are not equally easy to read at every point. Almut’s decisions and some dramatic turns may strike viewers as less convincing than the performances around them. The Associated Press praises the leads’ quietly affecting work while noting that aspects of the story invite debate. That tension is central to the film: Pugh and Garfield can make a scene emotionally immediate even when its construction or character logic remains open to question.
Rank #3
Does the film earn its emotional turns?
The strongest case for the film is that time-jumping makes its subject matter part of its form. Love is not experienced as a neat sequence, and memory gives some moments a meaning they did not have when they happened. The structure lets joy and sorrow occupy the same story without pretending that one cancels out the other.
The reservation is that the film’s most affecting elements can sometimes feel preloaded. When a scene’s placement announces its emotional importance, the audience may be moved by the arrangement as much as by what the characters say or do. Rotten Tomatoes’ critics’ consensus emphasizes the film’s nonlinear exploration of grief and the leads’ chemistry; TIME’s review takes a more questioning view of what the film asks from its audience. Those are distinct critical responses, not a guarantee of how any individual viewer will react.
Rank #4
One widely discussed example is the birth scene at a gas station, which prompted individual viewers to question whether its staging felt too ridiculous to accept. That reaction is anecdotal, not a measure of audience opinion, but it points to a real tonal risk: the film sometimes moves between romantic comedy, everyday chaos and illness-driven melodrama quickly enough that a heightened scene may pull a viewer out rather than draw them closer.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Is We Live in Time worth watching?
Watch it for Pugh and Garfield’s performances and for a romance that uses an unsettled timeline to make intimacy, memory and grief echo against one another. Go in expecting emotional directness as well as structural artifice: the same choices that make some moments resonate may make others feel engineered. If you prefer a strictly chronological love story or dislike illness-centered melodrama, its approach may be a harder fit.
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Best Value
- Factory sealed DVD
The film runs 107 minutes (1 hour 47 minutes). The Associated Press lists a U.S. R rating for language, sexuality and nudity; ratings and release details can differ by territory. Apple TV’s U.S. listing gives the same runtime and identifies Crowley as director: Apple TV U.S. film listing.
For collectors, A24 Shop lists a special-edition Blu-ray with commentary by Crowley and Payne, a making-of featurette and six postcards: A24 Shop’s We Live in Time Blu-ray.
Quick Recap
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