This overview was a part of our protection of the 2024 Sundance Movie Pageant. It has been republished for the movie’s theatrical launch.
The Pitch: An extinction occasion has made the Earth a really empty place, so when a solar-powered “good” buoy (Kristen Stewart) powers again on after a few years, it doesn’t have anybody to make contact with. Till, that’s, it wirelessly connects with a passing orbital beacon (Steven Yeun) that occurs to be serving as “humanity’s tombstone.”
The beacon incorporates an entire archive of human historical past and expertise, and in accessing it remotely, the buoy finds itself flooded with details about the lifeforms that after occupied this planet — data that triggers an evolution in consciousness, one which ultimately conjures up the beacon’s personal self-awareness. Finally, the buoy (now referred to as Me) and the beacon (taking up the identify Iam) are in a position to work together within the digital realm — and a really unusual and exquisite love story begins.
“Right here, We Can Stay”/ “However What Is Life?”: A panoramic, joyful, and profound examination of the character of consciousness and the which means of life, Love Me takes a premise that sci-fi authors has been exploring for many years and finds a complete new strategy. What would it not take, for one thing so simple as a pc program embedded on a microchip on a random machine, to achieve the next state of consciousness — to even perceive what it means to be aware?
Science continues to be trying to find these solutions, whereas fiction loves exploring the query. What’s exceptional about Love Me is the way it offers a considerate, virtually novelistic strategy to exploring each characters as they evolve and develop — even the best way wherein the movie is made lends a lot to the expertise, a “combined media” strategy to the storytelling that includes bodily animatronics, CGI animation, and dwell motion.
The Michel Gondry affect is obvious, and at occasions, the shift between the completely different types generally is a bit jarring, nevertheless it’s important to organising the logistics of how these characters construct their relationship — whereas additionally reflecting how synthetic their preliminary interactions are: In making an attempt to know what it means to be alive, Me takes the strategy of “pretend it till you make it,” leaning laborious on the archived posts of a long-dead social media influencer and her boyfriend, additionally performed by Stewart and Yeun, making a Blue Apron supply meal collectively, eternally, on YouTube.
Not-So-Robotic Performances: It’s fairly enjoyable to have the ability to write a phrase like “a solar-powered ‘good’ buoy (Kristen Stewart)” in a overview, however what’s much more enjoyable is watching because the movie’s two stars actually find yourself changing into their characters, their depiction on display reflecting their rising evolution in direction of actual life.
Initially, Me and Iam join as digital avatars harking back to the Mii determine you’d create to your Nintendo Wii profile (sure, that’s a loopy outdated reference, nevertheless it’s what involves thoughts). And as they develop extra refined of their understanding of existence, the 3D animation additionally turns into extra refined, to the purpose the place you possibly can truly see Stewart and Yeun because the actors behind their actions.
It’s an evolving course of, which signifies that because the movie consists of them increasingly within the motion, the viewer more and more turns into conditioned to simply accept flesh-and-blood actors as these personas which have been born and developed for the reason that starting of the movie. Which is to say, at a sure level in Love Me, it’s Kristin Stewart and Steven Yeun speaking to one another on digicam, and also you see them not simply as actors, however because the personifications of two lonely machines. It’s a fairly exceptional accomplishment, enhanced by the dedication Stewart and Yeun carry to their respective performances.
The Verdict: Love Me had the potential to be somewhat too treasured in its storytelling — actually there’s one thing profoundly cute about two robots falling in love, as any Wall-E fan will let you know. What retains the narrative balanced is the uncooked bleakness of the setting: Me and Iam themselves don’t have the simplest relationship, the tough edges of which give loads of narrative ups and downs. And extra importantly, there’s no hope for humanity’s return, no sense that future generations could be revived because of Me and Iam.
As a substitute, Me and Iam function humanity’s remaining legacy, an surprising however profound one, because of the nuanced means that each Me and Iam start their first steps in direction of self-awareness. It makes you think about what we’ll forsaking as a species, ought to our time on the planet come to an finish. However it additionally makes you need to recognize what all of us have, whereas we’re right here. Just like the miracle of a glass of water. Or a Blue Apron supply.
The place to Watch: Love Me premiered on the 2024 Sundance Movie Pageant. It made its theatrical debut on January thirty first, 2025.
