The feature debut from Sam and Andy Zuchero chronicles a romance told across billions of years and multiple visual media.
Plot: Long after humanity’s extinction, a buoy (Kristen Stewart) and a satellite (Steven Yeun) inherit the Earth, and with only the internet as their guide, learn what it means to be alive and in love. In this groundbreaking first feature from Sam and Andy Zuchero, LOVE ME explores AI and identity through live-action, animatronics, and classic animation in an epic tale of connection and transformation.
Review: If you have seen the trailer for Love Me, the feature debut from writer/directors Sam and Andy Zuchero, you may have gotten some Wall-E vibes. The film chronicles the love story between the artificial intelligence programmed into a buoy floating in the ocean and a satellite orbiting Earth. Set billions of years after the end of life on our planet, Love Me presents a touching romance between two inanimate objects as they develop emotions and invest in one another as the last two forms of life. Using multiple storytelling formats and visual media, Love Me defies convention and expectation to tell a story deeply rooted in the most basic feelings we may take for granted. And, like Pixar’s acclaimed science fiction film, Love Me will make you have all sorts of feelings.
Love Me opens with the formation of the planet billions of years ago, eclipsing the massive time span chronicled in Robert Zemeckis’ 2024 film Here. As the Earth undergoes transformation through the millennia, we see the end of life during a global climate catastrophe. After the fall of humanity, the planet is plunged into an ice age where the lingering bits of technology powered by solar energy make a connection. A smart buoy (Kristen Stewart) comes back online as the ice across the planet melts. It syncs up with an orbiting satellite (Steven Yeun), which carries a massive database of everything that comprises the history of life on Earth before it was wiped out. At first, the buoy and satellite struggle to communicate, but as they learn from one another and evolve, so does the film itself. Evolving from animation to live action, Love Me shows the growth of the buoy and satellite as they follow the same trajectory as humans when embarking on a romantic relationship.
Rendering a story about two pieces of technology becoming self-aware is daunting for any filmmaker. Luckily, Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun are more than up to the task. The pair of Oscar-nominated performers have proven over their careers that they are capable of drama, action, horror, romance, and more. As the only two actors in the entire film, Love Me hinges on the chemistry between the two. Luckily, the pair fully inhabit their roles as their A.I. characters base themselves on the digital signature of a pair of social media influencers named Deja and Ian. At first, Kristen Stewart’s performance is a rudimentary computerized vocalization, while Yeun’s echoes the cadence of the Moviefone voice from the 1990s. As they evolve, so do their performances, which shift from clumsy and childlike to mimics of their chosen avatars before feeling as human as anyone else by the film’s final act. Stewart and Yeun play two characters, each here, with one pair chronicled from inception to demise over the span of a billion years.
To give artificial intelligence a soul is a debatable topic in our real world, but in translating that question into a romantic narrative, Love Me answers questions asked since the dawn of film in stories as varied as Metropolis, Frankenstein, and The Wizard of Oz. These two characters are not merely machines but beings who encapsulate the entirety of what it means to be human in a ninety-minute film. Sam and Andy Zuchero used animatronics to give the initial buoy and satellite a tangible quality. At the same time, the animated sequences were based on Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun performing their scenes in motion capture suits, giving them a realistic flow that independently animated work does not quite match. When the film shifts to fully live-action sequences, you will find it hard to remember that the film was ever presented in any other format. The challenge in appreciating Love Me may come from such a massive story presented on such a small scale. For myself, I appreciated the intimacy of the way this story unfolds.
For a feature film debut, Love Me was a daunting project for The Zucheros. Sam and Andy, married in real life, scripted a realistic and tangible story. Some may find lines of dialogue seem heavy-handed or even a bit cheezy, but it also feels like how two teenagers would communicate. As the characters evolve, so do their conversations and, along with it, the maturity of their interactions. The unique set for the characters’ apartment adds an otherworldly feel as the solid visual effects of the buoy and satellite on a sun-ravaged planet feel as real as the physical actors on set. Love Me also features a great score by David Longstreth, lead singer of the indie band The Dirty Projectors. The film won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize as an outstanding film focused on science or technology. The realism of the events depicted over the condensed timeline of the film is a startling wake-up call of its own, which added to the emotional experience I had watching Love Me.
Love Me is an impressive debut for a pair of talented filmmakers who present a difficult idea in a manner that is as beautiful as it is unique. The Zucheros are writer-directors to watch; whatever they make will surely be unlike anything else on screen. The Zucheros were also lucky to have two talented performers in Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun, who transcend their reputations as actors by delivering one of the most believable romantic pairings in recent memory. Love Me is a beautiful movie to watch as much as it is an achingly sad one. The concept itself is a humbling one that really shows how small we are in the grand scheme of the universe while still showing that our experiences as conscious, living, feeling entities goes beyond time and space. Love Me may not work for everyone, but it is an exceptionally original attempt.
