Almut Bruhl - We Live in Time
Spoiler Warning: The following blog post contains major spoilers for the movie We Live in Time.
When a female protagonist hits you with an emotional truth so hard you are rendered incapable of doing anything but sitting in your own puddle of tears, you know that you’ve happened upon an unforgettable heroine. Almut, played by Florence Pugh in We Live in Time, did that to me. And she did it in a way that caught me off guard, which means it resonated even harder.
Within the first five to ten minutes of the movie, we find our protagonist, Almut, is a gritty and competitive person who is a chef and owns a restaurant. Then terribly, Almut, while at the doctors with her partner, Tobias, is given a cancer diagnosis, one that she had apparently fought before and has now reoccurred. Some viewers would stop there. Who wants to watch a movie about death and dying? But trust me. Don’t exit. Stick with it. There are character traits that are coming at us that are very interesting. And if you don’t want any spoilers, go now and watch the movie! Because spoilers are coming…
Right after the diagnosis, Almut is given the opportunity to compete in a famous, renowned chef competition. That we know she is considering doing.
Almut and Tobias have a daughter, but as it turns out, Almut and Tobias, in the past, almost broke up because kids were not Almut’s thing, but they were Tobias’s thing.
Hmm. This sent my mind reeling. Did she have the kid before the first diagnosis? Or after the first diagnosis? This needs to be worked out!
About half way through the movie, we find out the cancer is ovarian cancer. Ugh. We also find out that on the first occurrence of the cancer, before they had the daughter, she had been given two options: 1) freeze embryos, surgery to remove one ovary, chemo, conceive via sex or IVF; or 2) full hysterectomy and take ovaries and uterus. Clearly option two would be better for obliterating the cancer and on par with her not wanting to have kids. But Almut tells Tobias, even though she hadn't seen herself having kids, there is a world where she might decide to have them with Tobias. This is so interesting. She is contradicting herself. And we love characters who do something they said they wouldn’t consider doing. But also, we are very worried. Choosing option one seems very much like a sacrifice.
She achieves remission through option 1 and they conceive through IVF.
Present Almut continues to prepare and compete in the chef competition while getting treatment and without Tobias’s knowledge. When he finds out, Tobias is as angry as we thought he would be. He accuses her of prioritizing cooking over getting better. Risking her treatment for a competition. And here it comes. The emotional truth that delivers a punch. She tells Tobias she’s doing the chef competition because she doesn’t want to be just someone’s dead f#$&ing mom. She is terrified of her daughter not having anything to remember her by. She doesn’t want her relationship with her young daughter to be solely defined by her decline.
Wow. Just wow. I wondered about this. Why was she doing what she was doing (competition training) even though she was suffering from the treatment. And it hit me hard because I feel the same way. Her emotional truth is exactly why I self-published my debut novel in October of this year. I don’t want to live a life or be remembered for the things I always wanted to do but never did. I want my children to see that life goals can be attained. You can do hard things. If only just for yourself.