We Live in Time
A24 | Release Date: October 11, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
59
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 47 Critic Reviews
Positive:
25
Mixed:
18
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyJan 9, 2025
All emotions here are predetermined. The point is that we’ve simply been given licence to feel. Read full review
60
Little White LiesMark AschJan 7, 2025
This is simply a generic and brutally efficient tearjerker – like its title, it aspires to archetypal grandeur and lands somewhere blander. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeJan 7, 2025
We Live in Time is let down by the jarring product placement (take a bow, Weetabix and Jaffa Cakes) and by the aggressively anodyne score, which sounds like the kind of reassuring, hand-holding mulch that might be played in a dentist’s waiting room. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawJan 3, 2025
I felt that the film was evasive about the uncinematic reality of what serious illness and death actually looks like, and the final choice is too simplistic. But the film is still something to see, if only for the marvellous performances from Garfield and Pugh. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeJan 2, 2025
Many will be won over by the emotional surge of the closing moments. Others will wonder if there is a word for a manipulative drama that fails to satisfactorily manipulate. Read full review
60
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 7, 2024
It’s a klutzy way to tell a story, but Crowley is confident that the chemistry between Pugh and Garfield is so compelling, people will want to watch his movie again and again, at which point, Almut and Tobias’ memories will have become our memories, and the sequence hardly matters. Read full review
56
Paste MagazineJesse HassengerOct 11, 2024
For a touch-and-go exercise in hoping the audience will fill in not just the narrative blanks but the emotional ones, there’s We Live in Time. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 25, 2024
Such movies are manipulative by nature and we embrace them for that. Here, that’s more obvious and heavy-handed, and the manipulation tends to spare us tears — and laughs — when the tears are entirely the point. Read full review
50
Washington PostTy BurrOct 17, 2024
In any event, Pugh uses her expressive eyes and ardent, intelligent sensibilities to paint a touching if underdeveloped portrait of an artist desperate to leave her mark before being rushed too soon from the show. Read full review
50
TimeStephanie ZacharekOct 11, 2024
We need good melodramas, especially ones with elements of romantic comedy built in, and I wanted to love We Live in Time. But its cracks kept coming to the fore. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesGlenn WhippOct 10, 2024
Pugh gives Alma an edgy unpredictability that almost makes you believe some of the implausible things she does. And the expressive Garfield can convey water-eyed empathy so deftly that you know Tobias would be laid low if Almut so much as stubbed her toe on the leg of a coffee table. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisOct 10, 2024
Almut’s ambitions give her spark and grit, and they make the character appealingly contemporary, as does Pugh’s vibrancy and emotionally charged performance. The actress handles the shifting periods and deepening drama adroitly, even when the filmmakers begin selling out her character. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineDerek SmithOct 10, 2024
John Crowley’s film blunts the force of the naturalistic performances by Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield as it shifts around the timeline of the story with little rhyme, reason, or rhythm. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 7, 2024
Garfield and Pugh have such instant chemistry that one never doubts why their characters would end up together. But ultimately, We Live In Time views Tobias and Almut as abstractions, and by jumping back and forth in time, it never makes them very present. Read full review
50
The Daily BeastNick SchagerSep 7, 2024
Pulling on the heartstrings with tug-of-war-grade might, it’s a carpe diem fable that elicits more exasperated eye rolls than tears or laughs. Read full review
40
iFrancesca SteeleJan 3, 2025
It is, indeed, exceedingly tasteful, but without any narrative oomph, and some problematic characterisation to boot. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalZachary BarnesOct 10, 2024
A mawkish core remains, though, and the resulting disjuncture—between the film’s indie style and its sludgy sentimentality—makes the whole effort feel phony. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriSep 7, 2024
I never really bought the onscreen relationship in We Live in Time, in part because I could constantly feel the movie trying too hard. The love story is syrupy, and the tragedy even more syrupy. Read full review
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