Love Me, 2024.
Written and Directed by Sam & Andy Zuchero.
Starring Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun.
SYNOPSIS:
Long after humanity’s extinction, a buoy named Me and a satellite named Iam meet online and fall in love.
It’s never a good sign when “Oh, this is a movie about how relationships are hard” pops into your head, and then a character literally says, “Relationships are hard.” Such blunt dialogue is the faltering bane of married filmmaking couple Sam & Andy Zuchero’s Love Me, a sci-fi existential romance that has big ideas but no idea what to do with them besides have each character spit them out over the course of the disjointed, 90-minute running time, sometimes reaching excessive levels of shouting and melodrama (they really want to make sure they drive home the obvious points.)
Sometime after society has annihilated itself, a satellite functioning as humanity’s tombstone (complete with all knowledge of the world and Earth before mankind’s extinction and for whoever comes across it) comes into contact with a curious buoy looking to understand who and what she is meant to do. Through a mixture of voiceover and live-action performances (the latter being another frustrating mistake, comfortable with turning them into avatars and betraying the entire premise of the film while indulging in obvious messaging), the satellite and buoy are played by Steven Yeun and Kristen Stewart, both of whom are trying their hardest to make the most of this script that never once settles into a compelling rhythm.
Just as soon as it feels as if there could be an engaging window into this idiosyncratic relationship dynamic, the script always bulldozers over it to take the characters somewhere else, literally and figuratively, typically heightening the theatrics resulting in forced, overdramatic acting. It’s also a disservice to the tone that what passes for comedy here mostly amounts to YouTube and social media clips, with these sentiment technological devices passing for characters learning about humanity from them. There’s an early scene where the satellite has to explain a meme that is supposed to be funny, thoughtful, intelligent, and profound (something that the buoy feels that she is looking for in a partner), and while there is some admiration for the creativity behind it all, it’s hard to feel that Love Me encapsulates any of those qualities as a film.
The premise is as artificial as the lives of the characters the buoy locates through the Internet. She also decides that she and the satellite should role-play as actual people she has come across online through various methods that cause Love Me to shift into virtual reality animation territory and then live action. The buoy doesn’t actually tell the satellite what they are doing, as everything leads to animated shenanigans where they try and fail to have a meaningful relationship while also putting out the image that they are fine and happy (much like the social media pages of the woman the buoy is impersonating).
With all that said, there is the sense that the film is taking advantage of multiple mediums as potentially the only way this story could be told. Even in their physical representations, the satellite and buoy are aesthetically pleasing and whimsically designed. So, it’s a shame that the script consistently goes in circles, either asking the same questions or laying the messaging on so thick that there is nothing of substance to ponder. The image people put out there regarding relationships not always being truthful is hardly a revelatory message in 2024, even if Love Me does have an original concept with striking visuals tracking a planet’s evolution across millions of years and modern-day great actors trying to elevate the shoddy, scattershot material.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
