This is an eye-opening marvel: an absolutely perfect marriage of shrewd writing, skilled direction and transcendent performances.
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| Still blissed out after their first night together, Tobias (Andrew Garfield) and Almut (Florence Pugh) pause on their respective sides of her closed apartment door, and quietly contemplate what might come next. |
Actually, “romantic drama” is too simple a descriptor. Director John Crowley and scripter Nick Payne have concocted a captivating experience that is equal parts drama, comedy, tragedy and several other elements so intricately interwoven, that the sum is far greater than its marvelous parts.
All brought to solemn, cheerful, cute, catastrophic and intensely intimate life by stars Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield.
We meet Britishers Almut (Pugh) and Tobias (Garfield) as they confront a life-altering decision. She has an immediate response that would involve serious consequences; he’s more cautious and uncertain. These contrasting reactions are, we soon will learn, what initially — and continuously — defines their relationship.
They drive home in silence, but before we can process what just occurred, we’re yanked into Tobias’ life at another point in time: alone in a hotel room, faced with documents that must be signed. The immediate uncertainty — past or future? — establishes the means by which Crowley and Payne present this saga: as snapshots from a relationship that has spanned a decade, and (we soon realize) are being remembered in the present day.
To quote the film’s production notes, this is how we experience love: “in fits and starts, outside linear logic, in fleeting but indelible moments that are gorgeous, funny, high anxiety, delirious, sad and revelatory ... sometimes all at once.”
(Honestly, I couldn’t have said it better.)
I’ve generally not be impressed by films that capriciously bounce back and forth through time, like a frightened jackrabbit; the technique can be frustrating and annoying, and often doesn’t serve the story being told.
Crowley and Payne, however, pull it off with elegance.
When Tobias and Almut first meet, he’s the ultimate methodical, list-making wonk, climbing the corporate ladder at the Weetabix cereal and snack company. She’s an accomplished chef and co-owner of one of those posh London restaurants that serves meticulously garnished tiny portions that wouldn’t satisfy a starving rat.
He knows what he wants, and pursues things with long-winded speeches that justify decisions; he wants children. She’s preternaturally multi-talented, and refuses to be pinned down ... while insisting on being granted the option of changing her mind. She doesn’t see herself with children.
