Industry pundits are fond of telling us that the movie star is a dying concept: that blockbusters are now sold on characters and intellectual property rather than actors, to the point that even a colossus such as Tom Cruise has lately limited himself only to franchise work. That may be true, though my own definition of a movie star is looser, less money-minded and very much alive: someone, put simply, who holds your attention in pretty much anything.
Florence Pugh is one. Her most recent film, We Live in Time – currently on VOD and hitting DVD shelves on 24 March – is more or less a monument to her star quality, and that of her leading man, Andrew Garfield. Without their combined charisma and unforced chemistry, this time-hopping romantic drama wouldn’t amount to an awful lot. Playwright Nick Payne’s script essentially uses the same building blocks that made Love Story a smash 55 years ago: two young, beautiful people meet, fall in love and plan the rest of their lives together – only for cancer to suddenly decree that they haven’t long left.
