Contemplating Robert Pattinson’s sci-fi rom-com Mickey 17 debuted throughout the 2025’s film schedule, it makes unusual cinematic sense that his Twilight co-lead Kristen Stewart additionally fronted an amusing new romance that’s cloaked in science fiction. The latter movie, Love Me, is a type of initiatives the place, if you happen to weren’t paying strict consideration to movie competition premieres, you may not understand it even exists. Which is frustrating, since that is such a wildly distinctive, hilarious and heartbreaking film.
The directorial debut for Sam and Andy Zuchero, Love Me earned delicate fanfare upon its competition debut, adopted by an undersold January theatrical launch. 5 months later, it quietly hit the streaming cycle, and is at present obtainable to observe with a Paramount+ subscription, which is exactly what sparked my very own curiosity. Now, to assist fight the dearth of buzz that preceded its launch, I gotta blab about what makes this film so undeniably particular.
Love Me Is Actually Not like Any Different Film Romance
Given how similiar a large swath of romance-driven motion pictures are, I am at all times intrigued by tales that buck such traits. Love Me goes above and past in that sense by setting its story tons of of years sooner or later, after an extinction occasion has eradicated humanity, and by specializing in a waterbound climate buoy who makes a surprisingly significant connection.
In its quest to reverse its lonely existence, the buoy makes contact with an orbiting satellite tv for pc, and faucets into the historical past of the Web and YouTube within the effort to change into extra human-esque and make a official emotional connection. Granted, it is an effort that is considerably hindered by machine-logic and an absence of human nuance, maybe evidenced finest by the buoy naming itself Me, whereas giving the satellite tv for pc the moniker Iam.
Their story is initially one in every of extremely amusing fumbles and foibles as each change into accustomed to speaking non-essential info and studying to exhibit emotional responses. It is like a low-key mash-up of WALL-E and Her which then turns into a much more considerate and complex take a look at how components similar to monotony, secrets and techniques, and social media can every have drastically damaging results on relationships.
Stewart And Yeun Nail The Comedy, The Drama And The Existential Dread
Whereas scouring YouTube’s seemingly countless variety of uploads, Me stumbles upon the web page for Deja (Kirsten Stewart in human kind) and Liam (human Steven Yeun), a pair who documented the majority of their lives on social media. Me makes use of the various hours of footage to tell her personal method to wooing Iam in a digital actuality akin to life-simulation video games like The Sims.
Stewart and Yeun are glorious in all sides of their roles, each because the genuine and long-gone Deja and Liam, and in addition because the mo-capped iterations of the characters. (There is a visible improve that occurs late within the movie that the actors additionally promote completely.) From misunderstanding the English language to misunderstanding what real laughter is meant to sound like, Me and Iam are downright cute proper up till they level when issues go sideways. (Enjoyable truth: Kristen Stewart talked to us about hating pretend laughter in motion pictures, and why she dreads it as an actress.)
To make certain, the film does again away from its extra straightforwardly comedic moments within the third act as soon as Me and Iam hit a degree of battle, however that does not cease Love Me from being good, poignant and affecting proper via to the top credit.
So Why Is not Love Me Extra Beloved And Talked About By Now?
To make certain, I can 100% perceive why a film that includes two extremely superior tech units’ meet cute is not going to set the world on hearth in the way in which a James Bond or Avengers film may. I would not ever actually count on Love Me to change into a $200 million-earner on the field workplace, or to encourage a slew of devoted movies on YouTube and social. It is simply not that type of of a spectacle.
Nonetheless, I might completely count on for this sort of conscious and visually beautiful film to at the very least be closely embraced by critics and style crowds, but that end result does not appear to have occurred both. Here is the place the film at present sits with Rottten Tomatoes’ ranks:
- 47% Rotten (primarily based on 88 critiques)
- 62% Viewers Popcornmeter (primarily based on 55 rankings)
Even with the understanding that RT is much from an ideal metric in any sense, I am nonetheless bamboozled by the concept so many critics would supply up lukewarm-to-negative opinions a couple of film that I had so few points with. And that the common rating from viewers themselves, whereas primarily based on restricted enter, is not that a lot greater. It makes me surprise if all of us watched the identical film.
If there is a silver lining to search out right here, it is maybe that the overall lack of chatter about Love Me allowed me to enter viewing it with none preconceived notions about its high quality or lack there of. Had I recognized much more about it, I may not have been simply swayed into watching, and I might have missed one of many extra thought-provoking movie-viewing experiences of this 12 months or another. I am wonderful if it by no means enters the annals of finest rom-coms of all time, but it surely ought to be within the working for finest sci-fi rom-coms of all time.
With Dakota Johnson’s romantic comedy Materialists at present garnering widespread acclaim from critics and audiences alike, I can solely hope that viewers are drawn to hunt out different latest movies of that ilk, and that Love Me will spark a brand new wave of appreciation, hopefully lengthy earlier than humanity really will get worn out.