Among today’s young acting talents, few possess the enviable combination of depth and charisma shared by Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, who play to those considerable strengths as a contemporary British couple who find themselves facing a medical crisis in John Crowley’s deeply introspective We Live in Time.

Handed its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Crowley’s 2019 drama, The Goldfinch, was less enthusiastically received, the film eschews a traditional, linear approach to the subject matter in favor of a looser construction that weaves together a vivid patchwork of timeframes and memories to deeply poignant effect.

For thematic inspiration, Crowley takes his cue from the Lou Reed song “Magic and Loss (The Summation),” and especially the lyrics, “There’s a bit of magic in everything and then some loss to even things out,” in navigating the relationship between passionate, ambitious Almut (Pugh) and sensitive, attentive Tobias (Garfield).

Meeting each other in their 30s as fully-formed individuals with well-defined pasts and a clear sense of their wants and desires, Almut and Tobias proceed to set up house in South London’s verdant Herne Hill. She’s the chef in her own restaurant, and he, still raw from a divorce, is the corporate marketing face of Weetabix cereal.

Despite differing on wanting to raise a family — he’s raring to go, she’s unsure — they eventually end up having daughter Ella (Grace Delaney) after some difficulty getting pregnant, and would seem to be living an idyllic life when Almut receives a devastating diagnosis: a recurrence of ovarian cancer.

Rather than taking a conventional “where do we go from here?” approach, the unique script by playwright Nick Payne is more concerned with “how did we arrive at this place?” The film divides their story into three distinct time periods of varying lengths and re-splices them together in ways more interesting than standard chronological order. The approach allows for a series of lovely/surprising/amusing moments, from Tobias getting the back of his neck tenderly trimmed by his doting dad (Douglas Hodge) to Almut laying in a bathtub, balancing a biscuit on her very pregnant tummy to — in one of the film’s more audaciously choreographed sequences — giving birth in a petrol station loo.

It’s all immersively recorded by cinematographer Stuart Bentley’s photography, which penetratingly captures the defining moments in the couple’s decade-long relationship without ever feeling intrusive. Quite frankly, Bentley wouldn’t have been required to do much more than simply point and shoot, what with the generosity of those gorgeously honest performances given by Crowley’s two highly accomplished leads.

There’s an achingly palpable, playful chemistry between Pugh and Garfield that leaps off the screen. But they also refuse to shy away from letting their characters’ less attractive qualities bleed through. Beneath Tobias’ soulful eyes there’s an undercurrent of passive-aggressiveness that isn’t his best feature. Meanwhile, Almut’s silky-smoky voice can’t gloss over the painful frustration the disease is causing her when she insists on taking part in a prestigious international cooking competition despite her deteriorating condition and her husband’s concerns, protesting, “I don’t want my relationship with Ella to be defined by my decline.”

When that decline ultimately leads to the tragically inescapable and time reverts back to its chronological default, Crowley takes leave with the same tender yet truthful touch that informs the entire production. While We Live in Time and its subject matter might not lay claim to the audience uplift of Crowley’s Oscar-nominated Brooklyn, seldom has such an unflinchingly honest take on mortality felt so transcendently life-affirming.

“The Life of Chuck” is a departure for Mike Flanagan, in the sense that it’s not technically a horror movie. But it is a Stephen King adaptation, which is very much in the “Doctor Sleep” director’s wheelhouse. And it is haunted: By regret, by memories, and by the snuffing out of an entire internal universe when someone dies. (Adding another layer of sorrowful real-life resonance, film journalist Scott Wampler, who died suddenly in May, appears as a background actor in the film, which is dedicated to him.) If anything, “The Life of Chuck” just peels back the layer of metaphor and gets straight to the wistfulness that underpins all ghost stories. 

Structured around a verse from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” — “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes” — “The Life of Chuck” is told in reverse order from the end of a man’s life to the beginning. It does so in a way that’s surprising enough that it’s best not to discuss it in too much detail; suffice to say that it takes a cosmic approach to the idea of inner worlds. (“Every man and every woman is a star,” to quote Whitman’s fellow literary eccentric Aleister Crowley.) The entire movie isn’t sad, although it does land on a note of genuine pathos. But sentimentality suits Flanagan, whose florid writing style is well matched by the high-concept ideas explored here. 

Nick Offerman narrates the opening of each of the film’s three chapters, each of which related in some way to, well, the life of accountant (and surprisingly good dancer) Charles “Chuck” Krantz, played by Tom Hiddleston as an adult and Jacob Tremblay as a boy. Flanagan regulars Rahul Kohli and Kate Siegel show up in minor parts, part of a who’s who of familiar genre faces like David Dastmalchian, Matthew Lillard, and Harvey Guillén that rounds out the ensemble cast. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Karen Gillan play slightly bigger roles as a divorced couple who turn to each other for comfort in the imminent apocalypse — to explain more would, again, undermine the film’s most poetic theme — as does Mark Hamill as Albie, Chuck’s New York-accented Jewish accountant grandfather. 

It’s Zeyde Albie who convinces young Chuck that numbers are just as exciting as moonwalking across the school gym, setting him on a stable, but unexciting life path. “The Life of Chuck” uses dancing as a shorthand for whimsy, creativity, playfulness, joy — name an unselfconscious emotion that we’re supposed to put aside in the name of adult responsibility, and it’s expressed through dancing in this movie. Bubbe Sarah (Mia Sara) shows young Chuck musicals to cheer him up after his parents die in a car accident — this dark turn comes on that quickly and brutally in the movie, too — and his fondest memories are of dancing with her in her kitchen as diffuse white light streams in through the window. 

It’s a nice scene, but also a mawkish one. To be fair, Flanagan makes no effort to disguise or apologize for the clichés in “The Life of Chuck,” whose centerpiece scene depicts Chuck rediscovering the magic in his otherwise routine life by dancing with a stranger in the center of a suburban mall promenade as a crowd gathers around them. From there, the movie takes a turn into sadder territory, but the tone remains sunny and sweet and pleasantly generic. The lighting is bright, the locations are quaint, and the quips all come with a pre-packaged air of warmth and wisdom. 

Again, many of the points being made here are of a generic “enjoy every sandwich” type of bent. But there is something touching about “Chuck’s” core premise, which is that even the smallest and most ordinary of lives is animated by a divine spark. A human being is the culmination of every place they’ve ever been, every thing they’ve ever done, and every person they’ve ever met, and each of us carries a galaxy of experiences around with us everywhere we go. And when we die, those worlds die with us. 

Despite his reputation as a master of horror, this side of Mike Flanagan has always been there. (Same for King — he did write “The Green Mile,” after all.) As a filmmaker, Flanagan deals in raw, go-for-broke emotion; it’s just that this time around, he’s using that passion to affirm the audience, not disturb them. Whether one finds this uplifting or eye-rolling is a matter of taste, and cynics will likely find Flanagan’s latest far too saccharine for theirs. Viewers with a sweet tooth, meanwhile, may find themselves thoroughly charmed by “Chuck’s” dorky earnestness. 

Grade: B-

“The Life of Chuck” premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.

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Inspirational sports dramas usually share key elements — struggle, setbacks, perseverance and hard-fought triumph. Even more effective if the movie centers on a disadvantaged protagonist, either economically or physically, to inject that underdog spirit. Debuting director William Goldenberg has all of that in Unstoppable, the incredible true story of wrestler Anthony Robles, who was born with only one leg but never let that stop him from going after his dream. The special sauce here, however, is the bond of love and support through tough times between Anthony and his mother Judy, stirringly portrayed by Jharrel Jerome and Jennifer Lopez.

Goldenberg is an Oscar-winning editor whose collaborations with lead producer Ben Affleck stretch from Gone Baby Gone through last year’s Air. The latter is an entertaining account of a pivotal moment in the evolution of Nike and there’s a pleasing continuum in the fact that Robles was the first sportsperson signed as a Nike Athlete after he had retired from competitive participation in his field. This moving portrait of him will open in select U.S. and U.K. theaters in December, streaming on Prime Video soon after.

Unstoppable makes winking acknowledgement that it’s not trying to reinvent the formula. A strategically placed Rocky poster on the wall of the garage at home where Anthony works out is one tipoff; another is having him run on crutches up the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps, placing his foot in the print of Rocky Balboa’s trainers, embedded in concrete at the top. It’s a potentially cheeseball moment that instead has an endearing effect, which is characteristic of a movie in which every tearjerking moment fully earns its emotions.

Adapting Robles’ 2012 book, screenwriters Eric Champnella, Alex Harris and John Hindman trace the wrestler’s trajectory from his senior year at Mesa High School in Arizona, when he became a national champion, through his quest, in his final year of eligibility, to win the National Collegiate Athletics Association championship, competing for Arizona State University.

It’s clear from the start that Anthony’s disability doesn’t earn him pity points and clearer still in the proud tenacity of Jerome’s performance that what he wants is exactly the opposite. He’s a young man with a firm goal in his head to become a champion as a way to make people see his achievements first, and not his missing right leg. He has staunch backup every step of the way from Lopez’s Judy, who never gives up on her son, even when she has her own volatile domestic life to manage.

Despite his impressive record in high school wrestling and all the major college scouts having witnessed him in winning form, Anthony gets turned down by his top choices, led by the University of Iowa, whose fabled Hawkeyes are considered titans in the sport. Both Judy and Anthony’s high school coach Bobby Williams (Michael Peña) urge him to accept the full four-year scholarship being offered by Philly’s Drexel University, in fact the only school that wants him. But strong-willed Anthony is hesitant given Drexel’s complete lack of any NCAA wrestling profile.

Out of respect for Williams, Coach Sean Charles (Don Cheadle) at Arizona State agrees to see Anthony. But he’s frank with the kid about ASU already having a full roster of recruits lined up to vie for the wrestling program’s 33 spots and says it’s highly unlikely Anthony would make the team as a walk on (a non-scholarship player). But Anthony is not easily deterred.

At home, Anthony’s father has long been out of the picture. He’s something of a hero to his four younger half-siblings, born after Judy got together with prison guard Rick (Bobby Cannavale). Anthony adores the kids but has a more contentious relationship with his stepfather, a blowhard whose authoritarian streak comes out when he’s banging on about the necessity of making choices in life. All Rick’s blustery “real man” talk is exposed as a sham when it’s revealed that he’s let down the family in a way that could cost them their home. And his treatment of Judy increasingly sets off alarm bells with Anthony.

Goldenberg and the writers deftly balance out the domestic drama with Anthony’s progress at ASU, where he works harder than anyone else in tryouts and shows formidable determination in an arduous three-mile mountain hike, his crutches slipping more than once on the uneven, rocky path. His endurance impresses Coach Charles, but it’s his strength of will on the mats that ultimately wins him a spot.

Robles, who’s now in his 30s, serves as a stunt double for the wrestling scenes in wide and medium shots, with Jerome spliced into the latter and taking over entirely in tight shots. The sports action is visceral and looks painfully real, the violent force of slams and flips likely causing many in the audience to flinch. (OK, I did.)

There are the requisite threats of the dream being snatched away from Anthony, notably when ASU cuts the wrestling program for a year and it’s reinstated thanks to alumni donations but with a reduced team. It’s at that point that the rousing support of Anthony’s teammates becomes evident and as he starts notching up wins, he becomes a favorite with the crowds.

The movie could be accused of aggressively going for the tear ducts when Coach Williams delivers a box stuffed with fan mail from kids inspired by Anthony’s example, encouraging Judy to read them and giving her credit for raising an exceptional young man. Some of Coach Charles’ dialogue toward the end of the film, acknowledging his failure to see Anthony’s capabilities, also spells out in emphatic terms a realization already apparent in the warmth and profound decency of Cheadle’s performance.

But any sense of emotional manipulation in the script is more than justified by the extraordinary human drama of Robles’ story. Alexandre Desplat’s lovely score — which ranges from Ry Cooder-esque guitars to soulful strings and surging piano passages — brings welcome restraint for this type of movie, perhaps knowing that Anthony’s authenticity can stand on its own, without the need for strenuous musical uplift.

The contrast between Rick’s overbearing presence and the stalwart support of both coaches is poignant, and both Peña and Cheadle nail the ways in which their characters’ profession requires them to be as much motivational psychologists as sports strategists.

The dominant relationship though is the mutually protective one between Anthony and his mother. After a couple of disposable Netflix movies in which she was basically playing JLo in the frozen wilderness and JLo in space, Lopez sinks into the character here with a layered performance as Judy, full of pain, pride, bitter disappointment in herself and then unexpected resilience and resourcefulness as she tackles the bank controlling their mortgage.

Some might argue that Judy initially looks a bit glam for a mother of five who clips coupons in a household that’s barely getting by. But Lopez gives a tender and entirely convincing performance as a mother whose unshakeable belief in her son is a crucial part of his foundations.

In his first lead role in a feature, Jerome — who memorably showed the conflicting sides of teenage Kevin, the love of Chiron’s life in Moonlight, and won an Emmy for Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us — is excellent. He gives the movie a fierce beating heart as a young man who remains vulnerable yet refuses to be defined by what others perceive as his weakness.

Given the rules of this biographical subgenre and the fact that the title itself is pretty much a spoiler, there’s no doubt about where the story is headed. But as Anthony obsessively watches videos of the undefeated wrestler destined to be his championship opponent — and winces at the macho arrogance of his coach (Shawn Hatosy), who says, “At Iowa, we believe second is the same as last” — it’s impossible not to root for this guy imbued with such extraordinary fighting spirit or to be moved by his unyielding fortitude.

Goldenberg fumbles a brief coda designed to show how Anthony’s achievements have been celebrated and continue to inspire, which seems both pedestrian and unnecessary. But that minor misstep takes nothing away from the rewards of Unstoppable.