January is usually reserved for films that are not “big”, “family” or seasonal enough for Christmas or Chinese New Year. A January release suggests distributors not being overly optimistic about a movie’s prospects. Nevertheless, sometimes there’s a hidden gem or two among the sad January releases.

In 2024 there was little hope for Anyone But You, the rom-com starring what turned out to be two of the year’s most blazing stars (Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney). The year before, it was A Guilty Conscience. A gamble by first-time director Jack Ng, the film went on to become Hong Kong’s biggest locally produced hit (HK$115 million, or $14.8 million) at the time, until that record was broken by The Last Dance — released this past November — kicking a homegrown renaissance into high gear.

That’s a long way of saying John Crowley’s romantic drama We Live in Time has as big a chance as any of becoming a surprise favorite ahead of Hit N Fun or Creation of the Gods II. Playwright Nick Payne’s stagey screenplay is a good fit for theater-turned-film director Crowley, whose breakout film is the 2003 crime comedy Intermission, but whose best film to date is 2015’s immigrant story and romantic drama Brooklyn.

We Live in time has more than its share of traditional weepie elements, but the film is elevated beyond its station by its stars Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh.

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Told in the suddenly fashionable nonlinear style, the story begins near the end. We meet long-term partners — food company executive Tobias Durand (Garfield, whose film debut was Crowley’s Boy A) and chef Almut Brühl (Pugh) — visiting a doctor about how to proceed with Almut’s ovarian cancer treatment. With end goal firmly in sight, Crowley then flits back and forth through time, sketching out how the pair met, who they were before they met, how they impacted each other’s lives, the birth of their daughter Ella, and Almut’s appearance at the Bocuse d’Or competition, among other life landmarks.

However, it’s the in-between small scenes — loaded with little details that contribute to those landmarks — that really tell the story. These are also the ones that are hyper-sentimental and aggressively maudlin in an effort to make the pair’s grand, decade-spanning romance that much more grand. These are the passages with ridiculous dialogue that no one speaks in reality — uttered by a couple so modern that it borders on parody — precision-engineered for maximum tear-jerking.

But, and it’s an enormous “but”, these passages are also made entirely convincing and bittersweet by Garfield and Pugh, whose performances are so grounded and lived-in that it’s hard not to feel their tragedy in every minute. And, by the same token, it’s hard not to feel the joy they find together, and appreciate it for what it is. Without them, We Live in Time would have been a mess of manipulative Big Movie Moments that could easily inspire rolled eyes instead of teary ones, but with them the film has rendered an intimate “It’s better to have loved and lost…” meditation on living in the now.

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It’s not all misery of course. Tobias and Almut’s first dates hilariously balance awkward and hopeful, and Almut’s protracted (much more realistic) labor provides plenty of levity. None of this works without Garfield and Pugh burying their innate movie star charisma enough to make Tobias and Almut a tremendous screen couple — and maybe We Live in Time a stealthy January gem.