Cinema: Stars display striking chemistry in story of love, grief and sacrifice

There’s nothing quite like a cosy, romantic film to warm the soul on these cold, dark winter nights, and We Live in Time — the anxiously awaited romantic drama starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield — is primed to leave us all sobbing into our hot chocolates.

The film, directed by Boy A director John Crowley, follows Pugh’s Almut and Garfield’s Tobias from their dramatic first meeting through falling in love, building a life and a family, and dealing with the hardest challenges imaginable.

Told in snapshots in a non-linear narrative, it’s a touching, honest tale of love, grief, sacrifice, and what it means to build a family in the modern world, and the chemistry of its romantic leads is so striking, it’s hard to believe they were strangers before shooting began.

“I think it was really lovely because we didn’t know each other going into this, and we were both like: ‘Well, this is either gonna work or it’s not!’,” says Garfield, 41, known for playing Spider-Man and for starring in Never Let Me Go and The Social Network.

“We’ve got to do really intimate stuff with this other person, and I hope they’re not a crappy person — I hope they’re as devoted to their work as I am, and I hope they’re as professional as I am, and I hope that we have a good time, and we enjoy each other’s company, and we create something magical together, because otherwise this is not gonna be a nice time.

“Thankfully, we discovered we were both on the same page with most of what we were doing, if not all, and it was just a beautiful time and a beautiful experience to create this relationship for these two characters.”

For Pugh, who was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Amy March in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women and also starred in Lady Macbeth, Midsommar, and Oppenheimer, the timeline-bending structure of the film’s narrative was an interesting way to explore a woman’s journey through her life, her career, her decisions around building a family and what happens when fate has other ideas.

Her character, Almut, is a successful chef who has her own restaurant but is always pushing for more. Ambitious, talented, charming and unwilling to be pinned down, Almut’s story is one of a modern woman who juggles her own drive and ambition with the life-changing decision about whether to start a family.

“Coming at it with Almut’s story and her change of opinions and change of choices, it was really lovely to be able to play a woman in two parts of her life: one where she is wanting and ready to be her own champion and drive for success and only really has her own future and vision in front of her, and then also (to) play her later on, where she’s changed her mind and she’s accepting of allowing that as well,” says Pugh, 28.

“Just to be able to play a woman in this day and age that I know I recognise, I know that my friends will recognise, my siblings will recognise, and juggling with the decisions of career or children over that timeframe.”

As anyone who follows Pugh on Instagram will know, the actress is a huge foodie and loves to rustle up a treat in the kitchen.

It’s fitting, then, that her character in We Live in Time is a chef, and the role allowed Pugh to delve a little deeper into her love of food and cooking.

“I loved playing that part of her!” she beams.

“I’m already into food, and I’m already passionate about good food and cooking good food, but I had no idea how, I mean, that level of cooking that she’s supposedly going to be able to do, after a 7am run in the morning, is a completely different type of chef than I am!

“I was able to go to a Michelin-starred restaurant in London called Hide, and the head chef, Ollie, had me there for a day and let me see that world, and see the attention to detail and the focus and the respect across the board from everybody in that kitchen.

“(It) was just a really, really fascinating world that completely lit me up, and I loved bringing what I learned into the movie.”

Plus, she adds: “I got to eat a lot of food, which was my heaven.”

While Almut is the go-getting, career-driven person in her and Tobias’s relationship, her partner — while having a corporate job for a cereal company — is happiest when he’s letting Almut shine.

Double Oscar nominee Garfield says that he enjoyed how Tobias doesn’t bring the kind of love story masculinity we might expect from a male romantic lead, and how the subtleties of his character allowed him to bring sophisticated emotion to his performance.

“I think what’s interesting is (that) I don’t know another character that I could compare Tobias with in this style of film,” says Garfield.

“He did feel like a kind of unlikely romantic lead, which I loved, and there are aspects to him which wouldn’t usually fit with what we conventionally would assume.

“He is in touch with his emotions. His ambitions are not really about conquering the world. His ambitions are very different, equally as vital and equally as important, but they’re not big dragon-slaying, kind of the usual thing.

“I think another thing that’s interesting is that he’s a co-dependent... and it’s usually we see that represented the other way around, in the female character’s perspective — it’s (often) that they are waiting for the guy to call, or whatever. That’s been the kind of trope.

“Whereas in this it’s the guy going: ‘Why won’t she let me in? Why won’t she trust me fully? Why won’t she tell me the truth of what’s going on?’ And to see him struggling with that, I think, is really interesting.”

• We Live in Time is in cinemas now.