The love story at the center We live in time is unconventional – not only is it told incorrectly, but it also begins with Almut (Florence Pugh) running over Tobias (Andrew Garfield) with her car.

It’s also breathtakingly sad. Just minutes into the film, Almut is diagnosed with cancer, and although the film shows happier moments in her life and her deepening relationship with Tobias, the reality that she is running out of time looms large in every scene.

But Almut is not just a wife or a dying woman. Pugh told Yahoo Entertainment that her character is “constantly wrestling with the balance” of continuing her career as a competitive chef while raising a child.

“A lot of women today have to juggle that and how difficult that is, but that doesn’t mean giving up one means doing the other,” she said. “She still wants to achieve all of these things, and she wants to achieve them now for her daughter.”

Pugh added that finding a balance between ambition and parenting is something she’s “having conversations with myself about at this point in her life,” and she’s watching friends and siblings think about it too. She said she was “honored” to portray this on screen.

As Almut’s prognosis worsens, she begins to prioritize her career even more, reflecting on the fact that she doesn’t want to be remembered as just a mother or wife.

“I can’t bear the thought of being forgotten,” Almut says through tears in the film. As she struggles to establish her legacy, Tobias finds it difficult to support her and cope with his own pain. They both grieve in different ways.

Garfield knows that the film is sad, but that sadness is not in vain. He told Yahoo Entertainment that tearful films represent “an opportunity for us to connect with one another – to be together in our grief and our longings.”

Telling sad stories is a “healing art” that “connects us,” he said.

“It reminds us that we all belong to the same tribe, that we all have the same experiences, and that you are the other me and I am the other you,” he continued. “And until we remember this, we will feel isolated and lonely, as most people in this culture do.”

Garfield spoke to the audience after the premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and they told him what parts of the film caught their attention and how it made them feel.

“Friends of mine… watched it together and said, ‘I’m just so happy that I found my person and we’re in love,'” he recalled.

Another couple told him, “We have four kids and now we want to have another after watching this movie.”

Garfield has been open about his relationship with grief. He performed in 2021 The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to promote the film Tick, tick… boom! in which he played Jonathan Larson, a playwright who died before seeing his most successful work, Rent, are adored by the masses.

During the interview, Garfield said that the role helped him cope with the death of his mother, who suffered from pancreatic cancer. His statement about grief went viral.

“I hope that this sadness stays with me because it’s all the unspoken love that I couldn’t say to her,” he told Colbert. “And I told her every day. We all told her every day. She was the best of us.”

In We live in the time Garfield’s character faces the same grief of losing a loved one to cancer. This reminded him of his mother. But people shouldn’t let the fear of grief cause us to “shut ourselves off from love and risk because it hurts to love fully,” he told Yahoo Entertainment.

“It hurts to form a bond because the loss that comes with it is inevitable,” he said. “But it is the only way to live a life of vitality, abundance, and meaning, and it breaks down the calcified, protected, and hardened versions of our hearts so we can reconnect with ourselves.”

He added: “I just think that grief is a really cool gateway into our hearts so that we can then feel the love too.”

We live in time hits theaters on October 11th.