Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield’s bold new film about a woman who falls in love and then gets an ovarian cancer diagnosis tackles messy questions about motherhood most films won’t touch

The premise of Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield’s film We Live in Time doesn’t scream “romcom”: a woman in her 30s falls in love then gets a stage three ovarian cancer diagnosis. No wonder audiences have flooded cinemas with their tears. While critics have called it contrived, hearts have been won over by the leads’ natural chemistry, its local south London charm (albeit a bristling privileged one) and – in case you’re confused about the comedy part – a very funny birth scene in a petrol station toilet.

So far, so weepie. But for fellow thirtysomething women, there is a less obvious part in the story that gets under the skin – one that romcoms rarely dare to explore: the decision to be or not to be a mother.