Review of “Love in the Present”: Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield perfect lovers in the face of death

It’s hard not to succumb both to the acting of Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield and to the poignant story of this romantic drama.

Abandoning the chronological narrative, screenwriter Nick Payne goes back and forth in time to tell the story of the relationship between Almut (Florence Pugh) and Tobias (Andrew Garfield).

When they meet, she is a chef and owns her own restaurant. He is responsible for marketing for Weetabix cereals. What begins as a one-night stand quickly becomes serious. They move in together and start a family… until the day Almut learns that her ovarian cancer has returned.

In three distinct and mixed moments (their meeting, their love life and cancer), Nick Payne is interested in the way in which the couple – then the trio with the arrival of their daughter (Grace Delaney) – is built and transformed according to significant events in life.

Director John Crowley (Brooklyn) manages, once again, to film the couple’s intimate scenes (the birth remains one of the most striking and memorable scenes of the feature film) with a mixture of spontaneity, humor and emotion which cannot leave you indifferent.

The ambitious Almut and the sensitive Tobias, perfectly played by Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, are characters with whom it is impossible not to identify. Complex and endearing, they make us experience, in 108 minutes, a summary of life with its ups and downs, each return to the past or advance towards the future projecting us into moments of rare intensity, like this scene in the bathtub where Almut, pregnant, places biscuits on her stomach.

We could talk about these moments for hours, mention the excellent soundtrack (the music is the work of Bryce Dessner and the film includes songs from The xx, Wolf Alice and Villagers and, above all, the magnificent Hit Me Where the Heart Is by Mega Simone), remembering – with tears in your eyes – all those moments that make you vibrate or laugh. And constantly returning to the modest elegance of the almost final scene at the ice rink.

Both Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield indicated in interviews that it was difficult for them to leave these characters. And that’s the feeling we get after seeing Love in the present. We want to find them quickly to relive, once again, this roller coaster of emotions.

Rating: 4 out of 5