Steven Yeun has made quite a name for himself since his character Glenn Rhee was killed off The Walking Dead series in the most controversial death of the long-running series. He has made history by becoming the first Asian American to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and since nominated for his performance in Beef, for which he won two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe. Now he stars in Love Me, a movie that premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
Love Me is, at its heart, a romance, but it is much more. The movie was written and directed by filmmaking duo Sam and Andy Zuchero in their feature directorial debuts, for which they were awarded the Feature Film Prize at the Sundance Institute and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s joint Science-In-Film Initiative. The award included a $25,000 cash prize.
"We are delighted to honor Sam and Andy Zuchero's Love Me, an original and wildly imaginative film about the nature of human identity and our connection to each other in a post-human world mediated through artificial intelligence."Doron Weber, VP of the foundation
The movie stars Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun, in voice and live-action form, in a story of a buoy and a satellite who meet online and fall in love. This is after the total destruction of human civilization, where the machines slowly become sentient. The filmmakers have described the movie as a live-action Wall-E.
""It's actually a love story between a satellite and a buoy; it's hard to explain. I hope I don't botch it, because it's a really revolutionarily written script.""Kristen Stewart - EW interview
In an interview with Indiewire, the married filmmakers, known as Sam & Andy, talked about the movie not being so much about AI but seeing things through the lens of AI. They believe there needs to be precautions and safeguards where AI is concerned, but they also hold out hope that it can also be an extraordinary next step in technology.
Reviews that are being published currently are mixed, sighting that while Love Me is an inovative theme, the story loses ground as it progresses.
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