James Berardinelli review - * out of ****

https://www.reelviews.net/reelviews/love-me

Love Me is a testament to the ability of a marketing team to assemble an intriguing trailer out of 90 minutes of pretentious poppycock. Watching the trailer, one might expect the movie to offer an adult version of the story told in the family films WALL-E and The Wild Robot – about robots that struggle to achieve sentience and, as part of the struggle, cope with things like emotions that piggyback on the experience. To an extent, that’s what the movie does, but its approach is so tedious and abstruse that it becomes almost unwatchable. The excessively arty style (which includes a lengthy period that employs animation) is distancing and the characters never say or do anything interesting (largely because they have learned about the business of living via YouTube videos). This might be fine for a short but the limited material can’t come close to sustaining a feature length production.

I have never walked out of a movie but I desperately wanted to leave this one. Halfway through, I was bored to tears. This is an instance of filmmakers (in this case, Sam & Andy Zuchero) believing they have a profound message to convey and botching either the message (reducing it middle school-aged prattle) or its delivery. It’s not clear which. They try to ask a bunch of existential questions about the nature of existence, consciousness, and humanity. They ponder what constitutes identity. And there’s a lot of metaphorical stuff about the ultimate unimportance of appearance. Although these could all potentially be compelling, Love Me fails to find a way to make them insightful. There’s not a single idea in the entire 90 minutes that I haven’t previously encountered.

Love Me is the “love story” between a buoy (Kristen Stewart) and a satellite (Steven Yuen). After an admittedly impressive effects sequence that shows the life cycle of Earth from its birth until an apocalypse renders it devoid of life, we see the awakening of the buoy, who comes to name herself “Me.” As she floats around trying to figure out who/what she is, she is contacted by the satellite (“Iam”), which was sent into orbit at the time of the cataclysm with the entirety of human knowledge on board. As the buoy’s language skills and overall knowledge increase, she is able to forge a connection with the satellite. Soon, they have re-imagined themselves in the image of two popular YouTube influencers, Deja and Liam, to re-create those two in a virtual world that allows them to interact. Over time, the virtual world becomes increasingly real, causing Me and Iam to lean things about their bodies, their thoughts, and how they relate to one another.

That sounds more interesting than it is. The movie has a weirdly puritanical streak that avoids material that could be distressing or graphic. When the characters began to discover the joys of sensuality, the film chooses to use eating ice cream as the primary outlet. Yes, they eventually have sex, but it’s presented in a perfunctory fashion in which they change appearances to try out whether it makes a difference. The scene is shot in nearly total darkness, making it difficult to see what’s going on. This is one instance when explicit sex and nudity would have been entirely appropriate (not gratuitous). The sensory overload of experiencing being in a flesh-and-blood body is minimized almost to the point of irrelevance. It’s preposterous.

The acting is fine for what it is, but there are no real characters to essay. The movie does a good job with its YouTube recreations but fails when it comes to exploring the real relationship between Me and Iam. There’s no chemistry and if Kristen Stewart and Steven Yuen occasionally seem to be going through the motions, maybe that’s the point.

Love Me isn’t bad in the sense that it is poorly assembled or incompetently shot. On a craft and technical level, it’s above average. But the narrative is incoherent and the philosophical meanderings lack depth and intelligence. The whole thing seems like an inert, experimental piece of filmmaking worthy of being shown only to friends and family. Who is the target audience? Damned if I know. I recognize that the trailer makes it look like there’s something here worth experiencing. Trust me – the trailer is lying.