I was truly surprised to see that We Live in Time has excellent reviews—98% of Google users liked it. 

It seems I’m in the minority here, as I found the movie quite a painful experience.

I’m a complete sucker for romantic films with tragic deaths and dramatic takes; Me Before You will always make me cry—it will forever hurt more than a breakup. Or movies like Midnight Sun, which has basically no coherent plot, and all you know is that she is allergic to the sun and would rather die after spending an amazing summer with the guy she stalked for 14 years, are better than whatever British film We Live in Time was. 

My conviction right now is that people are animals of habit and that they are only saying that they liked the movie because they saw Andrew Garfield on screen and their heart melted—or saw Florence Pugh in her little quirky outfits and decided that they wanted to be her.

Here’s the honest truth about why I found this movie to be a letdown, brought to you in three bullet points:

1. It was supposed to be a dramatic, romantic movie but failed to meet both standards. The depiction of the relationship dynamics between the characters was not realistic: Andrew Garfield’s character, Tobias, is constantly portrayed as a submissive partner, so the relationship dynamic can fit current standards of social advancement, but come on! They overdid it to the point where it felt like a joke. They tried to invert the traditional gender dynamics instead of portraying them as actual people and that was quite awkward to watch. 
2. The jumps in time were poorly executed, which led to confusion and disengagement; basically, the director tried to explain too many things in a limited time. For example, we understand that when Tobias and Almut met, Tobias was finalizing the divorce. The reason for the splitting was later revealed in a short, confusing conversation: he briefly explained that his ex-wife did not want children, and he did. They just start kissing—the scene ends. Like, come on? Closure? And then they enter a conflict based on his exact same premise, AND then it is resolved? And they try to have babies when she gets diagnosed with cancer? Guys. Please.
3. Some scenes were so unrealistic that people in the audience laughed. I’m not even going to expand on this, but pinpoint this scene: a successful birth scene in a gas station bathroom while the people who work there are just staring at her rear end.

So, if you’re going to watch the movie and say it was good and cute or whatever, lie… you can do that—freedom of speech—but that does not mean you’d be right.