The review of 'We Live in Time' describes it as the biggest cinema disappointment of the year.

On paper, the film seemed thoughtfully formulated to be the perfect tearjerker for today.

Directed by John Crowley, known for the stunning Saoirse Ronan romance, the film teams up with heralded actors and internet darlings Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield in a weepy romance of wooing and tragic loss.

However, despite being peppered with sex scenes and adoring close-ups, the film is not a hot or even sweaty embrace of lust and love, but a soggy handshake that underwhelms despite its star power.

It’s shocking how the pieces that should’ve been the stuff of Oscar acclaim and audience adoration fall short.

Despite bringing together two of the hottest young actors currently working, Crowley’s movie is astonishingly middling, set apart from forgettable fare only by a time-skipping device that feels inexplicable at best and frustrating at worst.

The film begins with a couple already so well established that they have a cozy morning routine.

Ambitious chef Almut (Pugh) goes on a long picturesque run through a lovely forest, foraging ingredients along the way to use in her next culinary experiment.

She returns home to a gorgeous cottage and gets to work in her pretty kitchen, while her loving husband Tobias (Garfield) is still sleeping comfortably in their bed.

No sooner is their bliss established over a breakfast in bed than the movie leaps back to before they met, when he was just a sad sack on the brink of divorce with his first wife.

There’s thrilling chemistry following a literal car crash of a meet-cute, with Pugh’s signature charm sparking against Garfield’s unflappable wholesomeness.

Other moments, like their first conversation in a hospital hallway and a birth sequence wildly alive with energy, offer moments of hope that Crowley and company will cut their way through the messy plot device of time-skipping to hook into something unshakably profound.

But in the end, the film is profoundly mediocre, lacking the verve, sexiness, and raw human emotion we’ve come to expect from Pugh and Garfield.

The main plot of the film takes place once they’ve had their daughter and are faced with the recurrence of Almut’s cancer, more aggressive than before.

The question becomes, will Almut endure another round of body-wilting chemo that may not even save her life? Or will she reject treatment to make the most of the time she has left? The second cancer battle alone could have made an interesting movie.

But because this screenplay aims to loop back-and-forth to show the breadth of their entire relationship, it feels more like postcards of a relationship than a portrait that is fleshed out or remotely captivating.

There’s so little sense of cohesion from sequence to sequence, it’s hard to get emotionally invested in these characters, even if you’re someone who has been a fan of the actors, as I am.

This is the kind of role that seems perfect for Florence Pugh, as it is a woman who is dealing with conflicting emotions that demand she smile and frown with equal passion.

Almut loves her husband and her child, but also wants to be more than just “someone’s dying mum.

” So when an opportunity to compete in a high-level cooking competition arises, she can’t bring herself to turn it down, even if it means pushing her body to its limits and spending less time at home.

Again, this could’ve made a compelling story on its own.

But the film aims to create some sort of balance by also following Tobias, who has much less to do.

Where Almut is established as having desires outside of her marriage, her husband exists solely to mope when she disappoints him, an accessory to hang on her like an anchor.

Which is wild because Tobias’s arguments in the film—for honesty in their marriage and for attempting a new round of chemo—are valid, yet undermined by a plotting that treats him as a clingy obstacle to Almut’s professional dreams.

While Garfield delivers a soulful performance with big watery eyes, the scattered structure of the film gives him little to build on.

Tobias is so thinly realized that the audience is left to fill in the gaps, perhaps with prior appreciation for Garfield or a general affection for Nicholas Sparks–style romances where the besotted lovers are doomed to be separated by death.

In either case, the film on its own is frustratingly fractured.

To be clear, 'We Live in Time' is not the worst movie of the year.

That’d be the repulsive 'The Flash.

' It’s not the biggest bomb of the year, which looks to be Eli Roth’s messy adaptation of 'Borderlands.

' It’s not even a movie arguably enhanced by some sort of scandal, like Pugh’s 'Don’t Worry Darling' or 2024’s other recent weepy 'The Fault in Our Stars.

' In fact, 'We Live in Time' will likely be bolstered by the incredible chemistry its stars are sharing on red carpets and cheeky promotional interviews.

But on its own, this movie is far less than the sum of its parts.

The cancer story could have been enough to sustain it.

Perhaps with flashbacks to bolster our understanding not only of this couple's love but also the hardships they’ve traversed before.

It could have been a delicately balanced story from both perspectives, exploring how sometimes even the choice of life or death is achingly complicated.

But Crowley’s execution of Nick Payne’s woe-infested scribblings of a screenplay manages neither.

The time jumps feel like artless novelty, attempting to distract from how threadbare this story actually is—particularly Almut’s first round of cancer, which makes up three short scenes.

While Pugh and Garfield give their all to Almut and Tobias, the chaotic smattering of scenes provides no build in emotional tension.

In fact, jumping from the couple already together to not having met undercuts scenes of nervous flirtation with inevitability.

It’s like for everything that might work in this film, there’s something else that works against it.

Sequences like their first conversation in a hospital hallway and a birth sequence wildly alive with energy offer moments of hope that Crowley and company will cut their way through the messy plot device of time-skipping to hook into something unshakably profound.

But in the end, 'We Live in Time' is profoundly mediocre, lacking the verve, sexiness, and raw human emotion we’ve come to expect from Pugh and Garfield.