In the not-too distant future, a buoy and a satellite have relationship issues just like many human couples in the new film “Love Me” starring Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun.
“Love Me” is described as a sci-fi romance that takes place after the end of humanity. It follows Buoy (Stewart) and Satellite (Yeun), two robots on Earth that have access to the internet and learn what it means to be alive and in love. The film — which only features the two characters — is unlike any other. “Love Me” explores artificial intelligence and one’s identity with the use of live-action, animatronics and animation.
“We wrote it during the pandemic, so it was the two of us … adults, going around and around and around, doing the same thing every day,” co-director and writer Sam Zuchero tells TODAY.com, adding the film is about “how that affects you and your mentality about who you are and who your partner is.”
Co-director and writer Andy Zuchero adds that the film attempts to uncover the differences between how we present ourselves and who we actually are.
Now in theaters, the stars of the film, Stewart and Yeun, as well as directors and writers Sam and Andy Zuchero, share insight into the sci-fi romance and what happens at the end of “Love Me.”
What happens in ‘Love Me’?
“Love Me” is set in the future after the end of humanity on Earth. A Buoy, who has access to the internet, becomes interested in human beings and attempts to form its own identity.
While scrolling the internet, Buoy, who self identifies as “Me,” comes across a social media influencer named Déja and her boyfriend-turned-husband Liam. Déja and Liam’s seemingly perfect life revolves around “Date Night 2.0,” which includes making quesadillas in onesies, kissing and snuggling with their dog while watching “Friends”.
Buoy, AKA Me, adapts Déja’s life as the inspiration for her newfound life. She then meets Satellite, whom she gives the name “Iam” (pronounced I am). Without his knowledge, she helps Iam become Liam based on Déja’s social media.
The two build a virtual reality where they bring their characters to life.
As the two interact, they begin to feel their feelings and subsequently question their emotions, interactions and choices.
What follows is a couple that experiences unrealistic expectations on their relationships. Me wants the picture-perfect life and begins to feel unsatisfied after Iam tells her that their life is fake.
Overcome with what appears to be depression, Me goes off the grid and disappears for a billion years. During that time, Iam discovers that Me made up their life based on Déja and Liam.
“Her sinking is me getting into bed and pulling the covers over my head,” Sam Zuchero tells TODAY.com. “That moment where you’re just like, ‘I’m not gonna do this right now. I’m not gonna deal. I’m gonna go inward and I’m gonna just close off.’”
When Me decides to return, they continue to struggle with their identities. Iam tells Me he doesn’t want to be lied to and wants to create his own identity. Additionally, Iam wants to take things slow, Me becomes obsessive with their relationship and thinks he doesn’t love her.
“I want you and not Déja,” Iam tells Me, explaining that they are not the people who she created them to be.
After an intense fight, Me asks Iam, “Can we try again?” to which he says, “We have all the time in the world.”
The film ends with them in a new home in what appears to be a bustling city. Iam asks Me what they should do for dinner and Me replies they should go out.
Who do Buoy and Satellite represent?
Sam and Andy Zuchero actually built real-life robots for the movie and took them to locations to show the Earth’s transformation.
As for what they represent, Buoy, or Me, is someone looking for a connection, while Satellite, Iam, is programmed to find and connect with a life form on Earth.
Stewart tells TODAY.com that Me is “a pretty naive character” and “somebody who feels lonely.”
“I play a buoy who is living in an icy ocean after humans no longer exist, and she’s kind of hearing the echo of that loss and exhibiting it, but not really able to be it,” Stewart explains. “So she … desperately looks around and tries to find connection with the only other thing around her, which is this satellite.”
Buoy forms a “not-so-real personality” in order to be looked at and liked, Stewart adds. “And that doesn’t feel too separate from what it feels like to try to get to know yourself to the extent that someone might like you.”
Stewart likens her character to a baby who has the whole internet at their fingertips, “And all I want is to just hang out with one person. How do I make that happen?”
“Then she tells a few lies, and then really regrets it, but then realizes that there was a lot of truth in those lies,” she explains.
As for Yeun, he tells TODAY.com that Satellite, Iam, is just serving a function until he meets Buoy “and then all of a sudden, he becomes conscious of himself, and he’s wanting to be defined.”
Once he’s defined, Yeun says his character attempts to understand what that means. He eventually discovers that he would never have been able to define himself if it wasn’t for Buoy’s help. “And so (his) journey was a mirror of her journey.”
What happens at the end of ‘Love Me’?
Andy Zuchero explains that the movie starts with humankind’s extinction — “Though we don’t actually reveal why, we’ll just say simultaneous crises.”
“But the movie ends with our rebirth through these two new beings, and the fact that they ‘have all the time in the world’ means that they’ll continue to evolve as we’ve evolved over 200,000 years, and the Earth has evolved for 5 billion,” he says.
Stewart, on her end, feels that at the end Buoy and Satellite have a “breathy moment” where they get to relax. And with the passage of time, they will “create a situation” where they have to keep communicating and growing.
“It gets to the point at the end where they’re like, ‘Hey, what should we order for dinner?’ Which is kind of where we all want to get,” she says, questioning what being in a good relationship looks like.
As for Yeun, he brings up a quote his son Jude has been repeating: “We don’t know where the wind blows.”
“You look at the world right now and there’s a lot of stuff happening, and you just don’t know what’s going to happen,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be abject suffering, (it could be good).”
What is the message behind ‘Love Me’?
Ultimately, Sam Zuchero says “Love Me” is a love story about transformation.