“Whether we like it or not, the clock is ticking,” Andrew Garfield’s Tobias tells his lover Almut (Florence Pugh) in “We Live in Time,” a four-hankie weepy directed by John Crowley (“Brooklyn”).
It’s a film intensely aware of time but also in defiance of it, shuffling dates and events to tell a young couple’s tumultuous romance in ways that depart from Hollywood formula.
The unconventional chronology suits the salt-and-pepper pairing of Tobias and Almut in the film, which opens in theatres Friday, following its world premiere at the recent Toronto International Film Festival.
He’s a Weetabix cereal salesman; she’s a competitive chef. He’s tradition-minded; she’s free-spirited. Their meet-cute is like the Road Runner slamming into Wile E. Coyote. A birth scene happens in a roadside gas station.
Garfield’s and director John Crowley’s words are from separate one-on-one interviews during TIFF on Friday, Sept. 6; Pugh’s are from TIFF’s red-carpet interview and post-screening Q&A later the same day.
ON LOVE
Florence Pugh: “I don’t think anybody can prepare for a movie that’s about real life and about real love. I think that’s the whole point — the reason why it’s daunting and the reason why it’s so scary.”
Andrew Garfield: “What I love about the non-linear structure of the piece is it makes more sense by being out of chronological order. It actually finds its order out of order. … How does this moment from 10 years previous connect to this next scene, which is 10 years after, but then goes back five years? Calibrating all of that was really about finding a kind of invisible, golden thread between every single scene, no matter what time they were in.”
ON STORYTELLING
John Crowley: “I thought that one of the things that kept the film cinematic was actually the three time frames … one is across the day with the birth, one is across six months of the relationship, one is across five years of the relationship, and they’re shuffling with each other. So really the task was the script was structured in one way, (and we had to) break it apart.”
Garfield: “Usually (something) might be the crescendo of the film, but in fact, it’s in the first act. It was just a unique way of approaching it. It felt quite liberating. I wasn’t really concerned about it. It all felt taken care of somehow, because the scenes were so well written.”
Crowley: “I immediately connected with Nicolas Roeg, a director I adore who loved to shuffle time frames. His whole idea was that in an editing room, all time is available all the time, and that a film creates its own relative time universe.”
ON THAT BIRTH SCENE
Garfield: “We shot the (gas station scene) over two days, and we rehearsed it a lot for the physical reality elements of the birth and the kind of beat-by-beat, emotional developments and the logic of it. … Those two days were a deep, profound time, and it was challenging, but it was alive. It felt improvised every time. It felt very raw and full of vitality. It was a primal thing to do.”
Pugh: “We did 15-minute births, like, eight times. It was insane. It was amazing … So I was just so exhausted and sweaty and tired, and I got no endorphins or anything. But what was amazing is we worked with a midwife in the rehearsal period, and we started blocking out the scene, and then I continued working with her. I’ve never had a child, which is pretty key to knowing how to have a baby. But I do know a lot of amazing women who have had loads of babies, and I’ve heard all of their stories … it was like Andrew and I were preparing for a baby, and it was really, really, really beautiful. And when we finished the scene, we stayed in the room, and we kind of just, like, sat in the moment for a bit. And then we said goodbye to the room and it was so emotional …”
ON EMOTIONAL TRUTH
Crowley: “I do remember consciously choosing that I was going to double down and then triple down on the truth of each scene — almost archaeologically, trying to get further into the layers and layers of truth. If we could get that, it would be a film about what was happening between their eyes … it could be interesting, it could be magical. I would say that it is an examination of how we construct meaning in the face of constricted time, right?”
Garfield: “In reading this script, it was, oh God, this is a very intimate relationship that has to be created, and it requires the actors to plumb the depths of their own souls and dig up all of the s—t and all of the gold that’s down there and give it to an audience. And not only that, they have to do it witnessed very deeply by their fellow actor, and feel safe with their fellow actor. It’s either going to work or it’s not, and thankfully, it was just a pure pleasure every day to do it with Florence. She’s obviously, what’s obvious is that she’s a remarkable talent. She’s incredibly gifted, charismatic and talented … to have a real, true creative partner that was safe to create intimacy with was a blessing.”
Pugh: “(The film is) unfortunately about things that are inevitable and things that are real — and that’s why we’re probably so terrified about watching it. We know that there are going to be things that resonate with us, and we know it is correct for us to feel that way. But that’s a beautiful thing, and a wonderful thing to welcome.”
