I Watched Kristen Stewart And Steven Yeun's New Movie Love Me, And I'm Mad That Nobody Is Talking About This Poignant Gem

Considering Robert Pattinson’s sci-fi rom-com Mickey 17 debuted during the 2025’s movie schedule, it makes strange cinematic sense that his Twilight co-lead Kristen Stewart also fronted an amusing new romance that’s cloaked in science fiction. The latter film, Love Me, is one of those projects where, if you weren’t paying strict attention to film festival premieres, you might not realize it even exists. Which is maddening, since this is such a wildly unique, hilarious and heartbreaking movie.

The directorial debut for Sam and Andy Zuchero, Love Me earned mild fanfare upon its festival debut, followed by an undersold January theatrical release. Five months later, it quietly hit the streaming cycle, and is currently available to watch with a Paramount+ subscription, which is precisely what sparked my own interest. Now, to help combat the lack of buzz that preceded its release, I gotta blab about what makes this movie so undeniably special.

Love Me Is Literally Unlike Any Other Movie Romance

Given how similiar a wide swath of romance-driven movies are, I'm always intrigued by stories that buck such trends. Love Me goes above and beyond in that sense by setting its story hundreds of years in the future, after an extinction event has eradicated humanity, and by focusing on a waterbound weather buoy who makes a surprisingly meaningful connection.

In its quest to reverse its lonely existence, the buoy makes contact with an orbiting satellite, and taps into the history of the Internet and YouTube in the effort to become more human-esque and make a legitimate emotional connection. Granted, it's an effort that's somewhat hindered by machine-logic and a lack of human nuance, perhaps evidenced best by the buoy naming itself Me, while giving the satellite the moniker Iam.

Their story is initially one of highly amusing fumbles and foibles as both become accustomed to communicating non-essential information and learning to exhibit emotional responses. It's like a low-key mash-up of WALL-E and Her which then becomes a far more thoughtful and complicated look at how elements such as monotony, secrets, and social media can each have drastically negative effects on relationships.

Stewart And Yeun Nail The Comedy, The Drama And The Existential Dread

While scouring YouTube's seemingly endless number of uploads, Me stumbles upon the page for Deja (Kirsten Stewart in human form) and Liam (human Steven Yeun), a couple who documented the bulk of their lives on social media. Me uses the many hours of footage to inform her own approach to wooing Iam in a digital reality akin to life-simulation games like The Sims.

Stewart and Yeun are excellent in all facets of their roles, both as the authentic and long-gone Deja and Liam, and also as the mo-capped iterations of the characters. (There's a visual upgrade that happens late in the film that the actors also sell perfectly.) From misunderstanding the English language to misunderstanding what genuine laughter is supposed to sound like, Me and Iam are downright adorable right up until they point when things go sideways. (Fun fact: Kristen Stewart talked to us about hating fake laughter in movies, and why she dreads it as an actress.)

To be sure, the movie does back away from its more straightforwardly comedic moments in the third act once Me and Iam hit a point of conflict, but that doesn't stop Love Me from being smart, poignant and affecting right through to the end credits.

So Why Isn't Love Me More Beloved And Talked About By Now?

To be sure, I can 100% understand why a movie featuring two highly advanced tech devices' meet cute isn't going to set the world on fire in the way a James Bond or Avengers movie might. I wouldn't ever really expect Love Me to become a $200 million-earner at the box office, or to inspire a slew of dedicated videos on YouTube and social. It's just not that kind of of a spectacle.

However, I'd absolutely expect for this kind of mindful and visually stunning movie to at least be heavily embraced by critics and genre crowds, yet that outcome doesn't seem to have happened either. Here's where the movie currently sits with Rottten Tomatoes' ranks:

• 47% Rotten (based on 88 reviews)
• 62% Audience Popcornmeter (based on 55 ratings)

Even with the understanding that RT is far from a perfect metric in any sense, I'm still bamboozled by the idea that so many critics would offer up lukewarm-to-negative opinions about a movie that I had so few issues with. And that the average score from viewers themselves, while based on limited input, isn't that much higher. It makes me wonder if we all watched the same movie.

If there's a silver lining to find here, it's perhaps that the total lack of chatter about Love Me allowed me to go into viewing it without any preconceived notions about its quality or lack there of. Had I known a lot more about it, I might not have been easily swayed into watching, and I would have missed one of the more thought-provoking movie-viewing experiences of this year or any other. I'm fine if it never enters the annals of best rom-coms of all time, but it should be in the running for best sci-fi rom-coms of all time.

With Dakota Johnson's romantic comedy Materialists currently garnering widespread acclaim from critics and audiences alike, I can only hope that viewers are drawn to seek out other recent films of that ilk, and that Love Me will spark a new wave of appreciation, hopefully long before humanity actually gets wiped out.