Endearing, Complex + Lovely, We Live in Time is a Tribute to Living Life.

Warning: spoilers ahead.

Laced with sadness and bathed in warmth, We Live in Time is a gorgeous film that celebrates love, life, and living life, even in the most gut-wrenching circumstances.

Generically speaking, it is, technically, a rom-com. Only by watching it are you left with an emotional attachment to the couple, Tobias (Andrew Garfield) and Almut (Florence Pugh), whose chemistry is impossible to recreate. It is an easily forged but deeply loved relationship, much like that of our central protagonist’s attraction to one another.

Tobias works for Weetabix and Almut is a high-quality chef who is tempted by the offer of her old boss, Simon (a suitably bearded Adam James), to represent Team UK at the European cook-offs.

They meet when Almut accidentally runs Tobias over as he, signing off a divorce, trundles back to his lonely hotel room from Lidl with only four pens (having broken his pen AND the hotel pencil) and a Chocolate Orange, stuffed in his bathrobe pocket.

If that sounds funny or traumatic but not definitively one or the other... It's because it’s both.

It’s a theme we keep lurching between throughout the decade of love depicted between these two. Solemn hospital rooms and serious kitchen chats are offset by wonderfully chaotic service station scenes and the tranquil serenity of collecting fresh eggs from clucking hens with your little one. In their case, their daughter, Ella (Grace Delaney).

We Live in Time is a beautifully nurtured creation, a tenderness that matches how we get to know and bond with both Tobias and Almut - although they are fictional characters, they are both drenched in a sort of humanity which is undoubtedly likeable.

Flawed? Sure. Unorthodox at times? Oh, hell yes. Complex, carrying separate secrets for individual, if not fully processed, reasons? Indeed.

But, here, humane is perfect because, after the opening few scenes, how could you NOT root for this pair? They made us laugh deliriously and choke up suddenly, and Almut even provided some life-changing expertise into the best way to crack an egg (my lunchtime prep will never be the same again)!

It helps, of course, that Garfield and Pugh both radiate handsomeness, anyway as Tobias’ impressive jumper collection sings to an overall snugness, in the story.

But it’s Almut’s developing presentation that I’m fascinated by.

Before her cancer diagnosis, her hair is curly and blonde, and she is smart-casual, both in and out of her crisp white chef’s uniform. She is also imaginatively playful, and chic without trying to be - and she remains so. After her diagnosis, there’s a wonderfully liberating scene of her hair being shaved off by Tobias and Ella, the blonde gone and Almut bald. This is not depicted as pitiful. No, it is the opposite, powerful - because Almut chooses to get rid of her hair, she chooses to continue going on her runs, she decides that you know, she feels fabulous in her dungarees (such a versatile piece of clothing).

The picture of how Tobias loves her is easily, and carefully, painted. Almut’s ice-skating elegance from her champion teenage days on the rink reflects her chef’s steely focus, the preference for substance to, ideally, accompany style and her gentleness in teaching both Ella and Tobias about the world around them.

We Live in Time is a film that you can’t help but be absorbed by.

It’s ultimate message? Well, that, for all we are loved and give love in life, we all deserve to be remembered for our accomplishments, for the things achieved on our own, as well as with people around us.

Almut and Tobias are two heartwarming characters. Before the end, you’re already mourning Almut. Whilst sad, though, Tobias and Ella are not left broken by her death.

Almut feared what legacy she’d leave. Well, she left as a loving mother, compassionate and competitive chef and, very much like how she met Tobias, she departed decisively on her own terms.

Powerfully graceful, un-boxed-in by anybody, Almut above all leaves us with Almut. Not alone but most definitely not dependent, she is the unflinching, humble, insanely talented, frock-rocking spirit of this tenderly kind tale.