We Live in Time at the LFF review: Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield on knockout form in this time-hopping weepie

It would take a heart of stone to be unmoved by We Live in Time; a saccharine time-hopping tearjerker starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh.

You've (probably) laughed at the much-memed manic carousel horse in one of the early images released by the film’s publicity team a few months back... well now prepare to have your heart absolutely crushed, and unfortunately only see a passing glimpse of the roundly mocked equine.

Garfield plays Tobias Durand, a Weetabix marketing executive going through a divorce when, on an ill-advised trip to his hotel's nearest service station for some pens and a Terry's chocolate orange, he's run over by south London chef Almut Bruhl (Pugh). Quite the meet-cute.

But that is not where the movie begins.

Instead it's a disorientating start with writer Nick Payne, no stranger to messing with chronology thanks to his play Constellations, opting to jump back and forward through time (geddit?) across the early stages of their relationship; from Tobias's recovery in hospital, to pregnant Almut, to Almut’s illness and back again.

There's no hand-holding for the time jumps which keeps viewers on their toes and will have everyone studying changes to character's costumes and haircuts to try and gauge exactly where in the timeline the pair happens to be.

Pugh and Garfield are both on winning form, helped by Irish director John Crowley who allows them to be both sexy and vulnerable, with their intimacy captured frankly.

We Live in Time is, criminally, the first time we've seen Garfield on screen since Spiderman: No Way Home. Tobias is underwritten and about as bland as the cereal he works for (almost the perfect prototype husband complete with stopwatch to time contractions). But dammit Garfield can still turn on the charm, not least when navigating London gridlock when trying to get Almut to the hospital in time to give birth – a subsequent petrol station sequence is one of the film's highlights.

It's also a knockout performance from Pugh, who gamely shaved her head for the role. Her character is afforded much more depth and complexity and she runs with it. If the movie wasn't quite so trite, she might well have played herself into awards contention.

Mercifully the time-hopping structure, a lazy trope to make a screenplay seem 'modern', is discarded entirely by the end and We Live in Time is the better for it.

Instead we're transported from Herne Hill to Rome for a cooking and then skating sequence that may well leave you a sobbing heap on the floor of your local movie theatre. You have been warned.

In cinemas from January 1.

105 minutes, cert TBC