Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Netflix’s Our Times.Netflix’s rom-com Our Times is an ambitious approach to the time-travel genre and comes to a surprising ending for its explorers of space and time. Our Times follows Nora (Lucero) and Héctor (Benny Ibarra), a married couple who are both physicists and professors at UNAM in Mexico City in 1966. Nora is never afforded the same opportunities or privileges as her male colleagues but has contented herself with collaborating on groundbreaking research with Héctor. That is until she and Héctor accidentally jump forward in time to the year 2025.

Nora and Héctor’s stumbling through the 21st century is made easier when they quickly reunite with a former student who is now the dean, as well as some family members. However, Our Times becomes a thoughtful drama when a rift begins to form between Nora and Héctor, due to the advances in women’s rights in the future and the revelation of Héctor’s implicit Sєxism. I said in my own review of Our Times that it could have done better with its commentary, but it delivers a bittersweet ending.

Nora Pursues A Career In 2025 While Héctor Returns To 1966

Our Times’ Main Couple Decides They Have Different Priorities

Nora immediately takes off in 2025, earning the admiration of the scientific community and a prestigious job offer at the same university that blocked her at every turn in the 1960s. However, it is suddenly clear how much Héctor was dependent upon the atтιтudes of his time to feel validated, and is threatened by his wife being treated as the lead scientist on their project. As it turns out, Héctor only seemed progressive and supportive against the backdrop of 1966, when everyone else wouldn’t have had Nora in STEM academia at all.

Nora ultimately decides that she wants to stay, which has the benefit of not risking messing up the timeline by returning. After she and Héctor fight, she does some soul-searching and knows that she still wants to make things work for them. However, Héctor has already taken the time machine back; the portal window in space and time has also closed, preventing anyone from attempting it again for another 30 years. While it’s clear that Héctor would always feel insufficient in 2025, he also says in her farewell note to Nora that he didn’t want to hold her back.

What Does Héctor Do Back In His Own Time?

Things Might Not Have Worked Out So Well For Héctor

Our Times doesn’t exposit what Héctor does once he returns to 1966. ᴀssuming he could figure out a way to explain his wife’s disappearance, he could have returned to his work at the university. However, if Nora really was the genius of the operation, his research may have suffered without her. Additionally, he would have known that Nora’s sister Rebeca (Claudia Lobo) was going to die and may have had to make the harrowing decision not to attempt to prevent this. Finally, Héctor says himself that Nora is his only family, so he would have been very alone.

Why Nora Doesn’t Try To Save Her Sister & Remains With Her Nieces

Nora Accepts Her Sister’s Death, Which May Have Been Inevitable

Nora herself decides not to try to save Rebeca, which is the only real reason she still believes she had to return to the past, at a certain point. However, her niece Rebequita (Ana Ortizharo) essentially absolves her of this responsibility, pointing out that any day could be their last. Rebequita and her daughter Alondra (Renata Vaca) have made their peace and are living their best lives, which they now want Nora to be a part of. So, Nora decides to devote her time to her new family members, honoring her sister’s legacy.

Nora Is Able To Time Travel Again Decades Later & Reunites With Héctor

Nora Can Choose Love Once She Has Had The Career She Wanted

For three decades, Nora is occupied with scientific work, helped by the comparatively better circumstances for women in STEM. Julia (Ofelia Medina/Carolina Villamil) was once Nora’s admiring student, and now uses her position as the dean to promote Nora. Average audiences aren’t going to know much about advanced physics, but it would appear that Nora is a one-in-a-million talent in her field. She likely accomplished scientific breakthroughs that never would have been possible in an era when the system overtly worked against her. Nora also probably mentored Alondra in her own studies and research.

However, once the window opens up again, Nora does go back in time and is reunited with Héctor. The hopeful angle this movie is getting at is that now that Nora has accomplished all that she wanted to, and Héctor has had time to reflect, they can be together without conflict. They are both older, and they meet up again in 1996 (30 years after the time they originally departed). It’s hard to say whether all their problems have really disappeared, but if they have been apart for so long and still want to be together, they are willing to put in the work.

Julia Was Very Quick To Hire Nora, Her Idol – But It Seems To Have Been The Right Choice

It Was A Personally Motivated Decision But Was Proven Right In The Long Run

Julia admittedly offers Nora the job of department chair really fast. This move would have presented a lot of complications when Nora is from the past, and any investigative journalist would probably discover issues with her existence at her current age. Other faculty members are in on the discussion about Nora being a time traveler and greatly respect her as a scientist as well. Julia ultimately does this for Nora because she has always idolized her, from the time she was a young woman. However, given how successful Nora becomes and how she contributes to science, Julia’s decision seems to have been the right one.

Was Héctor The Villain Of Our Times?

We Don’t Have Any Other Characters To Pᴀssionately Dislike

Nora tells Héctor: “We’re victims of our times.” She refers to both the obstacles she faced in the 1960s and his inability to see her being more successful and admired than him without feeling insecure. Thus, the “villain” of the movie is simply social circumstance. However, if you want to pick a more definitive villain, it is going to be Héctor. None of the faculty back in 1966 are memorable enough to home in on as the movie’s true antagonist. Additionally, Polygon‘s Samantha Nelson argues:

Our Times is […] missing the strength of Barbie’s thesis that traditional gender roles trap everyone, not just women.

Despite Nora’s poignant comment, Our Times doesn’t really do enough work to convince us that Héctor is also a victim. Héctor does some really stupid things just to satisfy his own ego, including delivering what people instantly realize is one of the most cringeworthy movie scenes of 2025. All things considered, the movie presents Héctor relatively sympathetically, and one may be torn between saying he should have tried harder in 2025 or that it’s a shame he felt so out of place.

The True Meaning Of Our Times Ending, Explained

Love Can Endure Despite Complicated Power Imbalances

Our Times is about genuine love existing despite social pressures that could tear it apart. Aside from occasionally being annoyed that Héctor didn’t stand up for her, Nora never considered that he wasn’t a perfect husband in 1966. In the context of better treatment in 2025, she realizes his shortcomings and what kind of person his times have made him. She stands her ground that she deserves to have the life that 2025 will give her, but she still loves him, despite his mistakes. Héctor, in turn, decides he can’t manage the modern day and lets her go.

Our Times misses that how a partner feels about and reacts to socio-political movements could be a deciding reason whether to be with them, suggesting that the setting is key to Nora and Héctor’s relationship. However, the movie also effectively illustrates how the state of society is a part of the complicated web of a relationship. Our Times ends with the message that no, Nora should not have to give up the career she deserves, but that she feels comfortable choosing love again once she has done everything else.

Source: Polygon