Cork director’s extraordinary tale of the wonderful everyday

Award-winning Cork director John Crowley’s latest film, We Live In Time, stars Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, and is about a couple navigating their relationship through a medical crisis.

Crowley explains that the script captivated him from the very start.

“When I first read it, I laughed and cried at the birth scene. It struck me that there was an opportunity for us to make a film about epic moments in everyday life.

“The birth of a baby might be enormously profound for the person involved in giving birth, but for the rest of us, it’s just the stuff of everyday life. It goes on every day.

“It is the same with divorce, mortality, and falling in love. It’s just the stuff of everyday life, but the script was trying to capture some of the awe and epic quality of what that feels like if you’re inside it.”

Crowley says he wanted the film to feel relevant to anyone viewing it.

“I thought if we could capture the awe, it wouldn’t necessarily feel like it was fitting into one genre, that it’s a rom-com or a sad film, or an illness film, it would be a film that would be relatable to people in Cork as much as in London, as much as in Iowa. Audiences would go in and feel that it would ring true to their experience of their lives, their families, or their friends’ lives.”

Crowley, who grew up in Douglas, worked with Andrew Garfield on Boy A in 2007 and says he knew the actor would be perfect for the role of Tobias.

“When I am working on early versions of scripts, I’m often not thinking about actors. When we had a draft that we were ready to go to actors with, Andrew was very much in my mind. He is very comfortable emotionally as an actor and has spoken very eloquently about his relationship with grief after losing his mother. I thought this script would be in the sweet spot for him, and indeed it was.”

As Crowley notes, Garfield takes on emotionally challenging roles, but in this film, he also showcases a humorous side- something audiences don’t often see. The director was confident that Garfield would excel in this aspect.

“He’s hysterically funny, and I thought that would be an extra element he could play alongside his emotional stuff, giving the role an interesting texture. He’s a great physical comedian. He has an instinct for doing a double take.”

Pugh’s career is steadily skyrocketing, but Crowley didn’t know her before making this film and was excited to work with her.

“I had seen and adored her performances. Florence plays a lot of strong roles. I thought this would be a great chance for her to show the complication of vulnerability that was involved in that character, and that would be a great showcase for her emotional talents, but she and Andrew didn’t know each other, so whether it would work was gut instinct. It’s a shot in the dark; you go off the cliff and hope for a soft landing.”

The shot in the dark worked, Pugh and Garfield’s chemistry is electric. They also feel like a very natural couple, which Crowley says is easy to find with two good actors.

“With two actors as good as they are, your first job is to shut up and pay attention. You don’t teach or instruct; you learn to pay close attention. They are two very different kinds of actors. They approach their work very differently. They needed to get onto the same page, and once they did, it got exciting very quickly.

Although we see Almut get weaker, the film avoids showing the ravages of cancer, which is something Crowley decided early on in the process.

“The film is not trying to say, this is what this illness will do to you. It’s trying to get at what this illness means to a pair of people in a very happy, loving relationship, and they’re trying to figure out their relationship in the amount of time they have left, and that’s what the focus was. It is about the life force and figuring out priorities rather than declining.”

Crowley’s older brother, multi-award-winning set designer Bob, has shared how the family’s visits to Cork Opera House inspired his decision to pursue a career in theatre. Was that the same source of inspiration for John’s desire to work in the arts? He acknowledges it was, though not in the same way as his older brother.

“I was taken to a panto when I was about five or six in the Opera House. It was Jack And The Beanstalk, and, halfway through act one, I kicked off because the axe that was a prop for chopping down the beanstalk was covered in tin foil. I was clearly destined for film and the importance of realism rather than theatricality. I was taken out of the Opera House and marched home. So, yes, panto was massively important, just not in the same way as it was for my brother.”

We Live In Time had its Irish premiere at the Cork International Film Festival in November, which Crowley says was magical.

“It was really special. I had a lot of friends and family there. My kindergarten teacher was there; she is 94. She taught me how to read. The screening was magic. The room was electric. The humour played gangbusters, then the emotion kicked in mightily.”

Crowley explains that the festival exposed him to a diverse range of genres as a student.

“The Cork Film Festival was where I was first exposed to all sorts of extraordinary work when I was in school and university.

“It was a massive education for me. This was the first time I could present a film at the festival, so it was a major thing for me.”