GamesRadar+ VerdictKristen Stewart and Steven Yeun do their best with uneven material in an ambitious sci-fi romance that ultimately underwhelms.
GamesRadar+ Verdict
GamesRadar+ Verdict
Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun do their best with uneven material in an ambitious sci-fi romance that ultimately underwhelms.
Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun do their best with uneven material in an ambitious sci-fi romance that ultimately underwhelms.
Why you can trust GamesRadar+Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you.Find out more about our reviews policy.
Why you can trust GamesRadar+Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you.Find out more about our reviews policy.
Love Me premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 2024. Here’s our review…
Every so often, along comes a film that’s so ambitious you just can’t help wishing its execution lived up to its central idea. Writer/director duo Sam and Andy Zuchero take an admirably big swing with their feature debut Love Me, but it never engages emotionally in the way this kind of material needs to.
There’s something reminiscent ofWALL*Ein its sentient-machines-in-love premise. In the far-flung future, a melting ice cap frees a ‘smart buoy’ that’s been trapped on what was once Earth for centuries. This buoy begins interacting with a satellite whose job it is to teach any visitor about life on this now-uninhabited planet.
The casting of Stewart and Yeun (who play Me and Iam’s avatars as well as the social-media couple that inspired them) also leaves you willing this experiment to work. Both are eminently watchable, but here struggle with some pretty leaden dialogue. Sure, there’s the argument that they’re talking the way AI programs would, but that doesn’t make it go down any easier. Similarly, an extended section in which their characters are rendered in rudimentary CG has the distracting effect that you’re watching a cheapo animation, regardless of the intent behind it.
The frequent recourse to online viral videos grates too, especially at feature length. There’s probably a decent short buried in here that – unlike its protagonists – hasn’t survived being stretched out over an extended period of time.
Love Me’s release date is currently TBC.
For more from Sundance, read ourA Real Pain review.
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