A24 has a movie bound to pull in women audiences in the fall in We Live in Time, in which Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh play a couple where the latter is battling stage 3 ovarian cancer. Not only did audience members tear up tonight at the Princess of Wales Theatre here at the Toronto Film Festival, but so did Oscar nominee Pugh.
“It was so amazing, it was such a pleasure shooting this movie,” said Pugh, softly crying during the post-premiere Q&A. “Watching it…is like life unfolding and we’re all doing it right now.”
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The feature is non-linear film whereby we find out about Pugh’s character Almut’s plight at the onset, but we jump through moving moments of her life with Garfield’s Tobias, and their daughter — highs such as how they met (she hits him with her car) to her triumph as a competitive chef.
“There was a surrender that we wanted to happen in this film, a trust and letting go, and that was a theme in the film. There were moments tonight that moved me in a way that I hadn’t been moved before,” said Garfield. “(It’s about) two people who just want to live.”
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The actors spoke about rehearsing the Nick Payne-written script with BAFTA-winning filmmaker John Crowley.
Pugh praised Crowley for providing “two weeks of special, beautiful time.”
“We’d talk through scenes, how we felt, John was good about stopping it when it became too exciting.”
The birthing scene proved to a sacred moment for the actors on set.
“It was hard to leave that space,” said Garfield. The actor previously worked with Crowely on 2007’s A Boy.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do any of the stuff without the safety,” Pugh added about Crowley’s direction.
“Neither of us would be here without John’s space that he provided for us.”
We Live in Time opens in theaters on October 11.