Romantic drama through time

Presented at the Toronto International Film Festival, Love in the presentor We Live in Time in its original title, is the eighth feature film by the Irish director John Crowley (Brooklyn). He finds there Andrew Garfieldwhich he helped to make known thanks to the film Boy Areleased in 2008.

Between melodrama and romantic comedy

Almut (Florence Pugh) is a talented young chef and restaurateur. When she meets a newly divorced man, Tobias (Andrew Garfield), following a car accident, it's love at first sight. Their lives are completely turned upside down and a beautiful and chaotic love story begins for the characters, which John Crowley chooses to tell through three easily identifiable eras.

Love in the present has all the characteristics of a good romantic comedy: two charismatic and endearing protagonists, touching scenes relating the first emotions of love, but also moments of family life, and poignant adventures when destiny hits one of the characters hard. The film is not free of clichés, but it is full of cuteness and manages not to fall into pathos or excessive sentimentalism, despite the moments of pure melodrama. All accompanied by the lovely soundtrack of Bryce Dessner.

A chaotic and whirlwind life

Taking the opposite view of many rom coms, John Crowley chooses to disrupt the temporality of his film, not by starting at the end and operating a flashback – which would have been rather traditional – but by using a chaotic chronology, made of constant back and forth in the story of Almut and Tobias. Certainly, the viewer is a little lost at the start of the feature film, and certain tragic events arrive a little too early in the plot to arouse the desired empathy. Despite everything, this non-linear game is the strength of the storyline. Love in the present and concludes in a moving crescendo.

Like life, made up of joys and sorrows, the destiny of our two characters provokes a very successful mixture of genres: the tone alternates between laughter and tears, with some totally fanciful situations, scenes of great emotional intensity – the birth sequence is memorable – and a constant oscillation between lightness and depth. The film addresses the issue of the passage of time, parenthood, illness, and even brings a dose of suspense when Almut enters the culinary competition.

A duo of actors with overwhelming chemistry

Brought together for the first time in this film, Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield burst onto the screen, and the duo is present almost every moment, the secondary characters being particularly discreet. Almut is an ambitious and whole-hearted young woman, played with great accuracy by the British actress, while her sidekick embodies a sensitive and altruistic man, in whom fragility rhymes with intensity.

Both have an exceptional palette of nuances and their chemistry is palpable from the first moments. The staging, rather classic, simply supports their performances and their complicity, with numerous close-ups giving pride of place to the depth of a look, the charisma of a face. However, some highlights are worth noting, such as the carousel scene, exploring the intimacy of this budding couple under the bright and sparkling colors of the spinning carousel.

L’Love in the present is therefore an intense dramatic and romantic comedy, rich in emotions and convolutions. Playing with chronology and based on a duo of moving actors, the film is like life: luminous, tragic, sometimes simple, often tortuous.