All Is Full of Love

Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Love Me (2024)

By SARAH MANVEL

In 2008 the robots left behind after life on earth becomes extinct had a VHS tape of “Hello, Dolly!” to teach them about love in “Wall-E.” In 2024 the robots left behind after the Earth becomes extinct in “Love Me” have the entire internet, or at least a version of the internet in which pornography does not exist. That means the whole movie is actually aimed at 13-year-old girls, and leaves the adults wishing for better use of the incognito button.

In an undetermined future a smart buoy bobbing outside Manhattan is the last sentient thing on the planet. It makes contact with a satellite, the last sentient thing in the universe; and their programmes begin talking, initially without success. Eventually the satellite offers the buoy internet access, and with some judicious incognito research the buoy manages to convince the satellite she is a life form, having modeled an identity after an influencer named Deja (Kristen Stewart, very good) who lived with her boyfriend, Liam (Steven Yeun, excellent). Since their existence has been established and they are therefore friends, they create Instagram profiles under the names Me (Ms. Stewart) and Iam (Mr. Yeun), which evolves into a shared online space, an apartment with their human avatars wearing onesies. And since they have all the time in the world, they begin practicing being in a relationship.

It must be said that the movie’s visual style is just superb – there are large desert and water animated sequences full of vivid, tactile detail, as well as space sequences which feel like they were plucked from nature documentaries. The animated style of Iam and Me in their apartment is deliberately Sims-esque, which strikes the correct visual note. But a lot of the conversation between Iam and Me involves discussing memes, which is frankly the ideal boyfriend-girlfriend relationship when you’re 13, but weirdly hollow for the rest of us. There’s also somehow an enormous amount of product placement. But no relationship has ever run completely smoothly, and as Me and Iam mature eventually there’s an argument which leads to a billion years of solitude. We are shown those years in fast-forward, training-montage style; Joseph Krings’s editing achieves a great deal of the movie’s overall tone. The character left behind says their time alone was spent building flat-pack furniture. But just as some people completed Netflix during lockdown, there is plentiful time to wonder if that billion years would suffice to watch all the porn on the internet.

This is perhaps unfair to writer-directors Sam Zuchero and Andy Zuchero, a boy-girl married couple, who are exploring how we learn about relationships and whether that’s possible from social media. But hoo boy, even this concept of online learning at the Sundance Film Festival needed a little more frankness. The scene where Iam’s avatar throws a temper tantrum and strips off his onesie reveals his nude self is based on, well, a Ken doll. This means the later scenes where Me and Iam have human forms spark some pretty big questions! And there are probably more than a few 13-year-old girls who would be out there asking them. With the choice of “Hello, Dolly!” at least all of that was avoided.

As it is, the message here for 13-year-old girls is that you need to love yourself before you can love anybody else, and the way to love yourself is to find a way of living that doesn’t feel fake to yourself. The scammy perfection social media sells to us is a message way too many people buy; and it’s kind of refreshing to see this message delivered in such a visually intriguing way, especially since it’s unlikely younger teenagers will realize this movie’s aimed at them. But that’s also like warning a kid about a zit when they’re running into traffic. There are bigger dangers on the internet than social media; and “Love Me” is taking aim at the leaves on the trees instead of the forest, dark and deep. Of course, the version of this movie in which the internet did contain porn would be so sordid and gross it doesn’t bear thinking about. But as every kid eventually learns, you need to know what dangers are out there in order to avoid them, and you need to know what a bad boyfriend or girlfriend acts like in order to find yourself a good one.