#90. We Live in (a terrifying) Time
About that new movie you may have seen...
Last Friday, I went with my friend Rachel to see the new A24 movie, We Live in Time.
Buckle up, kids! This is going to be a bumpy ride.
Spoilers abound ahead, but I think you may want to read this anyway, even if you plan to see it. The movie jumps around in time so much that there are no big “reveals,” because we get them in the opening scenes. The movie spoils itself, essentially. You’ll see what I mean.
First, let me just say that I have calmed down significantly since watching We Live in Time. I was tempted to write this essay immediately after the closing scene, but I wanted to let my incensed feelings ~simmer~ for a little while. This movie plucked my immediate outrage strings, but it’s been about a week now, and I still haven’t changed my mind about it.
Rachel and I left the theater with four dry eyes and a lot to say. We walked by a group of girls (college students, I think?) on our way out who were all sobbing, like this movie was their generation’s The Notebook. We exchanged confused looks, laughing a bit like the Millennial bitches we are, then texted about it incessantly the next day; the movie and its message clearly having struck a chord with us, too. (But not in a good way).
This comment on my favorite critic review (“Death by Heterosexuality” by Rich Juzwiak for Slate) sums up this movie for me perfectly:
“Ugh. Woman who doesn’t want kids suddenly decides she should have some for her man’s sake in spite of the large risk to her life and dies as a result? Pass.”
Kayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
ICYMI, We Live in Time is the new Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield movie. There is nothing remarkable about this film, save for the fact that it hops around weirdly in time and would be completely unwatchable without the immense star power of Florence Pugh. This movie would be a hot pile of garbage without her, period.
To give you a quick summary if you haven’t seen it: Almut (Florence Pugh) and Tobias (Andrew Garfield) meet after she hits him with her car in the most eye-rollingly contrived meet cute in cinematic history. She has a job she loves as an award-winning chef; he works for a cereal company and clearly has no further career aspirations. Almut and Tobias start dating fresh off his divorce, and have a argument about kids early on in their courtship (he wants them, she doesn’t).
Almut goes all the way off on Tobias for even hinting at the idea her biological clock might be ticking (Almut is an unconvincing 34-38ish in this movie; Florence Pugh is only 28), and they break up after she slings a totally unwarranted “fuck you” at him. But then! Tobias barges in on a baby shower (??) to confess his love again and tell Almut she was being, well, rude. They get back together, and then Almut is diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
You can probably see where this is going. If you need another hint, one of the opening scenes is Florence Pugh cracking eggs (again).
Back to the Slate comments section for a moment because they’re really on point:
“The plot is ‘magical sterilizing procedure that guarantees no cancer’ vs. ‘magical non-sterilizing procedure that guarantees a child but condemns you to later death by cancer.’”
And this is it – the “decision” Almut has to make that transforms her character so we get a nice narrative arc that’s supposed to punch us in the gut. (But again, this is not a spoiler, because we saw a pregnant Almut in the first few minutes of the movie.) So of course, Almut decides she wants to hang on to one of her cancer-ridden ovaries, going against the doctor’s recommendation of a full hysterectomy, so she can maybe have a child with Tobias (who she’s known for an unclear amount of time, but it feels like maybe around six months to a year?)
Then, surprise! (Except not at all!) They do get pregnant (cue the stereotypical positive pregnancy test scene), Almut gives birth in a gas station bathroom (honestly this was the best part of the movie even though it sounds horrible, I promise it’s great), and when their daughter, Ella, is around 2-3 years old, Almut’s ovarian cancer comes back and she… dies.
And that’s the end of the movie.
Just so we’re super clear: This movie is about a 34 year-old childfree-by-choice woman who meets a man who wants kids, gets diagnosed with a very specific cancer that will either allow her to have a child or stay alive, but not both, and she chooses death.
You already knew this film was both written and directed by men, didn’t you. (J.D. Vance, is that you????)
Let me be fair for a second. This movie was not made by Americans; it’s a product of England. But the timing truly could not be worse for this movie to hit theaters in the U.S.
I went into that dark auditorium thinking I was about to watch a tragic, time-bending love story about cancer (maybe The Time Traveler’s Wife meets A Walk To Remember? Slay me) and cry happy/sad tears with my friend who also gets emotionally wrecked by A24 movies. But no one told us it was a horror movie!!
We Live in Time leans precariously into the belief that women are supposed to sacrifice everything for their children – even their lives. This movie looks like it’s modern and woke if you’re glancing quickly, but is actually super traditional and regressive underneath the surface.
Of the two main characters, Almut is the one with the big career. In the second half of the film, she chooses to compete in a prestigious chef’s competition instead of get married (because – gasp – the competition is on the same exact weekend they picked for their wedding, forcing her to choose). It’s a huge plot point, and we spend a lot of time with Almut in the test kitchen. But then we get alllllll the way to the end, and Almut leaves the competition stage before we find out if she won. She grabs Ella and Tobias from the crowd, and they go ice skating instead.
But did Almut fucking win the Bocuse d’Or, or not?!
We’ll never know, because this story doesn’t care. Here’s what The New York Times had to say:
“Among other irritations, they turn Almut’s hard-won identity as a chef into a problem, one that comes to a head when she enters a competition that may sap her strength. Almut tells Tobias that she worries what kind of legacy she’ll leave Ella, never mind that she’s internationally recognized already. That she — or any woman — would want to keep working because it’s meaningful to her doesn’t seem to have dawned on the filmmakers.”
There is a world where you could convince me this story is actually a cautionary tale, if it had been written by a team of women… but that’s just not how it reads.
Bless poor Andrew Garfield – who I do love – trying to do his emotional, nice-guy best in the final scene where he’s cracking eggs with their daughter, the way Almut used to do it, and he doesn’t even seem upset that his wife is dead; just happy to bask in her memory with Ella. I imagine he is blissfully unaware that by this last scene, I had re-cast him as the villain in my head. He never once suggested Almut should get the hysterectomy, prioritizing the potential of an unborn child over her wellbeing, and his cozy attitude is giving sociopath.
I kept waiting for the “rewind” to happen – where the filmmakers would take us all the way back to the beginning of the movie, and this time, Almut and Tobias split up for good when they realize they aren’t on the same page about children. Or they stay together and she gets a full hysterectomy, saving her life, and we catch up with them years later, enjoying their 40s without children.
But I guess that’s not the story the zeitgeist wants to tell right now, is it.
File this movie under: Stories where women not wanting children is seen as a problem to solve, or something to work through. One where an independent, successful woman deciding she does want children after all is a transformational act of radical selflessness.
Even if she dies.
“My husband won’t take my last name” by Aja Frost for
This essay is an excellent addition to the conversation about people changing their last names after marriage, from the perspective of a woman (hi, Aja!) who wants her partner to change his name:
“I’ve asked him if he’d take my last name a thousand different ways. I’ve offered (jokingly but not really) to let him decide our kids’ first names, every movie or show we watch for an entire year, and/or where we go on our next five trips. He’s kindly but firmly told me no every single time. I’ve promised to let it go… but I’m still thinking about it.
The kids will still get my last name. We’ve never really discussed this; I just assumed, given my vision of us all being Frost. But this stings a bit for Sam, I learn. Growing up, he pictured his wife and children getting his last name. I catch myself from giving him a pat on the back. Not that I don’t appreciate it — and agreeing to pass my name onto our future children is definitely unconventional — but his sacrifice is one women make all the time, without fanfare or appreciation.”
“I Froze My Eggs to Reclaim My Right to Rest” by Jean Guerrero for The New York Times
This essay smacked me in the face with how fucking fantastic it is. A must-read even if you’ve never considered freezing your eggs:
“At 35, I faced mounting pressure from the matriarchs in my Mexican and Puerto Rican family to have a baby. “You’re going to end up alone,” an aunt loudly declared at a holiday dinner party. My mother, who raised me and my sister by herself after my father started smoking crack cocaine, repeatedly lamented my decision to leave a boyfriend over his drinking problem. “Nobody’s perfect,” she said. “You could’ve had a baby and then left.”
My family members feared I was becoming the specter that haunted them years ago, inspiring some of them to rush to reproduce with unreliable men: the childless señora. The solterona. At the height of my career as a national columnist, I was on the brink of becoming the family failure.
Every other day, I went to the clinic to have my follicles measured. They became rounder and fuller. I tried to think of them not as black holes but rather as magical portals to new humans. One was swelling faster than the others. I told myself she was a future baby girl, way too ambitious like me. I made sure to eat healthy foods to nurture my army of eggs. As I hunted for a new job and wrote up a third book proposal, I told myself not to stress out because it could hurt my eggs.”
“The Gentle Man Has Taken Over Pop Culture” by Judy Berman for TIME
This article was published before the election but it still hits – we all want men (both real and imaginary) to be emotionally vulnerable, and yet we end up with someone like Donald Trump leading the country (again…)
“It isn’t exactly surprising that these exemplars of emotional intelligence are resonating with the overwhelmingly female audience that consumes romance content; their appeal as fantasy fodder, alongside bad boys and men in uniform, is perennial.
A new National Research Group report on "the role of the entertainment industry in tackling America's masculinity crisis" found that of the top 20 fictional male role models identified by males ages 13 to 30, not one lives in our reality. The irony is that the male characters they crave already exist; they’re just being marketed to women.”
OMG DROP EVERYTHING, the first excerpt from Onyx Storm is here!!
“His eyes flare in confusion for all of a millisecond before shadows explode around us, immediately devouring every speck of light in a sea of endless black I instantly recognize as home. A band of darkness wraps around my hips and yanks me backward, then brushes my cheek gently, steadying my galloping heartbeat and quieting my power.”
EEEEEEEKKKKKKKK I have avoided a potential spoiler by not including more, but January cannot come fast enough.
I am a big fan of Anna Kendrick, so when I found out she just directed her first movie, I ran to watch it. Woman of the Hour had me on the edge of my fucking seat, and genuinely sobbing by the end. It’s a lightly fictionalized film about a real serial killer from the 1970s who appeared on the reality TV show “The Dating Game,” and the actor playing the killer was so good I had to comfort myself by watching interviews of him just being a normal dude after the movie was over. I don’t want to spoil anything for you, but the last ten or so minutes of the film are just absolutely A+. (But don’t watch this until you feel mentally ready, if you know what I’m saying!)
So, what did you think of We Live in Time? Come tell me; I neeeeeeed to know.
Also – writers! One of my readers was curious if there are any other writers out there looking for an online writer’s group? She’s happy to lead the group and do all the admin/organizing (essential!), but she’s looking for community, and I can confirm that having a writer’s group has been so helpful to my mental health, lol. If you’re interested, please respond to this email or leave a comment for me below! x
I’d love to join a writers’ group! Melindamarch11@gmail.com
Uff. I'm very glad I read this before watching - I actually had ovarian cancer when I was 28 and had one ovary removed and have thankfully been cancer free since then but I'm guessing this movie would not sit well with me. I'm now almost 38 and child free and my doctor recently brought up removing the second ovary. I'm taking some time to process it because I'm not in imminent danger, but it's not really a question. Thanks for this, I'm not usually worried about a movie triggering me but I think this one might have had me spinning.