Arts

We Live In Time
Director: John Crowley
Film4, SunnyMarch and Shoebox Films
In Theaters 11.18

Laughter, tears, the joy of love, the pain of loss and Andrew Garfield. I’ve personally encountered each and every one of these during my time circling the sun, and they are part of the rich tapestry of the human experience. John Crowley’s new film, We Live In Time, weaves them all together with an elegance and poignancy that is truly a joy to experience.

Tobias Durand (Garfield, Tick, Tick… Boom!, Spider-Man: No Way Home), a representative for a major cereal company in the U K.,  has just signed his divorce papers when he decides to pop across the street from his hotel room to visit a convenience store and is promptly hit by a car driven by Almut Brühl (Florence Pugh, Midsommar, Little Women).  Almut takes Tobias out to dinner, and the sparks start almost immediately. As their relationship deepens and they move in together, they face ups and downs, including a brief separation over differing feelings toward marriage and kids. Love prevails, however, and the couple has a daughter, Ella (Grace Delaney), who is the center of their world at the time that Almut is diagnosed with ovarian cancer. While there is the possibility of a positive outcome with chemotherapy, Almut—overachieving free spirit that she is—questions whether she wants to risk wasting the time that she has left with grueling and miserable procedures, or simply to live her last months to their fullest with the people that she loves. The difficult decision will test the strength of their bond, but together, Tobias and Almut stay committed to the idea that whatever happens, they will embrace each moment together, however it is spent.

While the premise behind We Live In Time is largely that of a standard romantic weepie, the approach is something else entirely. The screenplay by Nick Payne (The Last Letter From Your Love) is clever and filled with wit, warmth, wonder and richly drawn characters. The story is told out of sequence, and while the non-linear approach is right on the edge of wearing out its welcome, here it allows for a movie that’s made up of moments in time, capturing the reality of a relationship and all its experiences, memories and feelings, without have to artificially craft them into a formulaic and false plot structure. There’s an ethereal quality to the way the various elements connect-seeming to float gracefully from one thought to another rather than jump cutting scene to scene-that is beautifully and profoundly refreshing, acknowledging that life doesn’t follow a rigid structure, and is neither episodic nor separated into three acts. The fact that Crowley (Brooklyn, The Goldfinch) is able to jump back and forth so completely through time in such a free style without ever sacrificing focus and narrative clarity is remarkable, and speaks to a skilled director with a vision. 

It would be going too far to say that this movie is all in the performances, yet it’s hard to overstate the impact of the exceptional work that Pugh and Garfield are doing here. The depth of the connection and commitment to bringing the chemistry and emotion couldn’t be stronger, and the movie soars because the audience falls in love with them both so completely. The ensemble surrounding them is very strong, with Douglas Hodge (Gemini Man, Joker) as Reginald, Tobias’ father, and Lee Braitwaite as Jade, a chef who works with Almut, being the most obvious examples. But then there’s Nikhil Parmar (Gran Turismo) and Kerry Godliman (Trigger Point) as Sanjaya and Janes, respectively, two service station workers who figure prominently into the film’s most memorable sequence, as Almut is unable to make it the hospital before giving birth, in what is arguably the most exciting action sequence of 2024. Each minor character becomes a fully realized and believable person, yet it’s impossible to think about any of them for too long without coming back to Almut and Tobias, because the lovable characterizations from two of the most fearless actors of our time are just that good. 

We Live In Time may be indeed just be an exceptionally well-made romantic melodrama that hits all the right notes, but when you consider that the abysmal It Ends With Us represents the most successful mainstream entry in that genre in some time, to say that Pugh, Garfield and Crowley transcend those trappings doesn’t feel like sufficient praise. This glorious, wonderful and life affirming film is a testament to what artists who are passionately committed to bringing a story to life can do, and it ranks among my favorites of the year. –Patrick Gibbs 

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A little holiday cheer is expressed and even more is shown, or at least sampled, in “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.” And almost nothing is explained.

The idea behind Tyler Taormina’s (“Ham on Rye”) warm, aimless and largely laugh-free Christmas Eve wallow in nostalgia is the selectivity of memory, and perhaps how drab the “colorful” memories our director and co-writer decides to show us turn out to be.

Unexplained, disorganized and cluttered with characters we strain to identify in banal situations that go nowhere, this isn’t one that’s going to replace “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “A Christmas Story” or even “The Family Stone” or “Feast of the Seven Fishes” on anybody’s holiday movie list.

What we figure out — eventually — is that this extended family is gathering on snowy Long Island for what could be the “last Christmas” with Grandma Antonia (Mary Reistetter). Eventually, a “Carmine” is mentioned and a couple of other names that suggest this is an Italian American clan.

We see a flip phone, a ’90s Buick wagon and a ’92 Jeep Cherokee and piece together that this an “Eve” in the early 2000s.

A couple of siblings bicker with a couple others over “Sunrise Nursing Home” or “live in aid” options for their mother, over who is not doing enough to help this situation and who is.

The little kids are kind of passed-over — merely underfoot — as the adults cook, smoke cigars, kvetch and reminisce, and the teens and tweens experience traditions such as “the walk,” “the bird” (cooked) and “the parade” — decorated fire engines that pass in a blur. Some kids borrow a family Cherokee for a run out to a cemetary, a little drinking and carrying-on shared in dark close ups and hook ups.

“Car equals FREEDOM!”

We assume they’re not kissing cousins, but hey, when you don’t explain Jack, there is is some doubt.

A couple of local cops (Gregg Turkington and Michael Cera) gawk at some of this while on duty and get into one awkward conversation meant to be comical.

And the soundtrack to it all is early ’60s doo-wop and pop, perhaps for its Italian-American connotations.

I found the entire experience a dissonant disconnect as there is barely anyone to identify, much less identify with, there’s little novelty to anything presented here and nothing to root for because basically a lot of nothing or nothing much is all that happens.

Save yourself the drive. Rent “Feast of the Seven Fishes” and get a load of THOSE Italians if you want to see a memorable period piece about a memorable Christmas.

Rating: PG-13, smoking, teen drinking, sexual situations, profanity,

Cast: Elsie Fisher, Maria Dizzia, Francesca Scorsese, Ben Shenkman, Matilda Fleming, Sawyer Spielberg, Leo Chan, Gregg Turkington and Michael Cera.

Credits: Directed by Tyler Taormina, scripted by Eric Berger and Tyler Taormina. An IFC release.

Running time: 1:47

You’d be hard pressed to find anyone here who had anticipated that Han Kang would be awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in literature, the world’s highest literary honor.

Although the South Korean novelist had already tallied up a number of other prestigious international accolades and is widely read here, she is 53, and the award traditionally favors writers in the twilight of their careers.

“I thought that she might win it one day, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon,” said Jeong Kwa-ri, a literary critic and former professor of Korean literature at Yonsei University, Han’s alma mater. “Most of the South Korean writers who have been seen as top contenders are in their 70s and 80s.”

Recognized last week by the Swedish Academy “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life,” Han is the first Asian woman to win the literature Nobel in its 123-year-old history and the second South Korean Nobel laureate. Then-President Kim Dae-jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his diplomacy with North Korea.

Han has kept a low profile following the win, reportedly refusing a celebration her father planned, citing the wars still raging in Gaza and Ukraine. But the rest of the country has been abuzz with “Han Kang Syndrome.”

As of Tuesday, the country’s book retailers have reported more than 800,000 sales of Han’s works and expect to hit the 1 million mark by the end of the week. Stores, dealing with long lines, are rapidly selling out, and printing presses have been working around the clock to produce more.

Han, who was born in 1970 in the city of Gwangju, comes from a literary family. Her father is Han Sung-won, a famous novelist who has cheerfully noted that his daughter’s stature has eclipsed his own.

“It used to be that Han Kang was known as Han Sung-won’s daughter, but now I’ve become Han Sung-won, the father of Han Kang,” he said in an interview in 2016.

Many of Han’s novels are intimate portraits of violence inflicted on ordinary lives, spanning both South Korea’s long history of authoritarian rule and the feminist struggles of the present.

South Korean riot police use tear gas to disperse students in Seoul in May 1993. The students had gathered to protest former Presidents Roh Tae-woo and Chun Doo-hwan’s alleged involvement in the Gwangju massacre in 1980.

(Kim Jae-Hwan / AFP/Getty Images)

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Among her best-known works in South Korea is “Human Acts,” a novel about the Chun Doo-hwan military dictatorship’s massacre of civilians in 1980 following pro-democracy protests in the city of Gwangju.

Public debate about the massacre has long been an irritant for South Korean conservatives, who have at times sought to downplay the government’s role or promoted conspiracy theories that the protests were an act of North Korean subterfuge.

Under the conservative administration of former President Park Geun-hye, the daughter of another military dictator, Han was placed on a blacklist in 2014, barring her from receiving government support, along with other creatives deemed to be ideologically undesirable.

Told through multiple perspectives, “Human Acts” draws inspiration from real-life figures, including Moon Jae-hak, a high school student who was shot to death by junta forces deployed to Gwangju.

“I was so happy that I thought my heart would stop,” Kim Kil-ja, Moon’s mother, said of Han’s Nobel in an interview with local media. “Her book has managed to spread the truth about the incident to the world.”

Han’s own recommendation for those just diving into her work is “We Do Not Part,” a novel that explores a civilian massacre the South Korean government committed on the island of Jeju in 1948, a period of anti-communist paranoia. The English translation of the novel, which won France’s Prix Médicis award last year, is due in January 2025.

But the most famous — and notorious — of Han’s oeuvre is “The Vegetarian,” a darkly surreal tale about a woman who spirals into madness after vowing to give up meat. Lauded as a parable about female resistance against patriarchal South Korean society, the novel won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize, an honor shared by Han and her British translator, Deborah Smith.

But the award placed the book at the center of a fierce debate about literary translations. Critics said the award-winning English translation by Smith, who had only started learning Korean a few years earlier, not only committed basic errors — such as confusing the Korean word for “foot” with “arm” — but altered the text far beyond the acceptable parameters of translation.

“Translations of Korean literature have long suffered from many obstacles, with more ‘pure’ translations failing to find success,” Jeong, the literary critic, said.

The question has long preoccupied the country’s literary scene, which has watched South Korea’s film and television industries produce worldwide hits like “Parasite” or “Squid Game” while wondering why South Korean books have failed to capture the same level of global interest.

“As a result of that, there has been an increasing tendency in translation to overlook disfigurations of the original text in favor of conforming to foreign readers’ tastes,” Jeong said. “‘The Vegetarian’ is a prime example of that.”

Writing for The Times in 2016, Charse Yun, a Korean American literary translator, acknowledged Smith’s “exquisite” sentences but said that the translation had ”morphed into a ‘new creation.’”

“I find it hard to come up with an adequate analogy, but imagine the plain, contemporary style of Raymond Carver being garnished with the elaborate diction of Charles Dickens,” he wrote.

Defending her work in an essay for the Los Angeles Review of Books in 2018, Smith, who has translated two more of Han’s books, argued that, given the differences in any two languages, “there can be no such thing as a translation that is not ‘creative.’”

For many critics, the translation question is still an open one. But for better or worse, Han’s latest and most prestigious honor has now cemented the playbook for Korean literature’s global success.

Despite his doubts about Smith’s translation, Yun today sees plenty of reasons to be optimistic.

“The field was greatly opened and more people were able to access Korean literature,” Yun said of Han’s global rise.

“I’m just happy for my former students and other talented translators out there that now have an opportunity to bring other Korean voices to the field.”