Many of us have wondered what others will think of their legacy once we leave this Earth, but Love Me takes this once step further and asks what others will think of humanity once no humans are left on Earth. The sci-fi romance movie, which debuted at Sundance Film Festival in January 2024, is an intimate yet ambitious feature film debut from co-writers and co-directors Sam and Andy Zuchero. It stars Kristen Stewart as a lonely buoy who comes across a satellite (voiced by Steven Yeun) meant to store the remnants of humanity for future visitors to uncover.

While the buoy may not have been the intended audience, it quickly latches on to videos of adorable babies and carefully curated Instagram feeds from influencer couples and decides to fashion a form of life for itself. “Me,” as the buoy calls itself, convinces the satellite, who begins to go by “IAm”, to work towards becoming lifeforms together. Their strange and unusual love story is at turns touching and tumultuous, especially when “Me” slowly morphs more and more into one specific online persona named Deja (who naturally looks like Stewart) and hopes IAm will recreate that idenтιтy with her rather than forge their own.

ScreenRant interviewed Sam and Andy Zuchero about the questions posed by the buoy and satellite in Love Me, with the directors offering a surprising response that perhaps best encapsulates the movie’s themes. The Zucheros also revealed why Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun could understand their unusual characters more than most, and how they landed on the sure-to-be-infamous sequence of IAm dancing his satellite heart out.

Love Me Directors Give Their H๏τ Take On The Meaning Of Life

They also explain how Stewart and Yeun’s characters approach the question differently.

ScreenRant: Not to start with a trite question, but Me wonders what life is early on. For each of you, what is life?

Andy Zuchero: I think the question is ridiculous, quite honestly. [Laughs] I think that the joy of life is trying to discover that from the day you’re born to the day that you shuffle off this mortal coil.

Sam Zuchero: It’s also a super subjective reality for everybody. So, life is just whatever you think it is at any given moment.

ScreenRant: Clearly, Me and I have very different takes on what that might be at the start of the film. Did you guys have discussions on where they’re starting from with IAm being kind of robotic, as one would expect, and Me immediately yearning to become a lifeform?

Andy Zuchero: We did. They each had different characters because they came from different backgrounds, as we all do, and it’s sort of nice to watch two disparate beings learn how to live together and love and accept each other for who they are despite their differences.

But, ultimately, it’s a story about two new beings who are trying to figure out who they are and what the difference is between how humanity depicts itself online and maybe what actually moves us in our hearts.

Perhaps one of the most interesting story elements in Love Me is the remaining online presence of humanity without any sign of humans themselves. When all that’s left is our social media personas, how will those looking back perceive us? Me and IAm may appear to become an influencer couple in love, but they can only copy the moments they found on the internet while having no idea who those people were when the cameras turned off.

The dicH๏τomy between the public and personal persona comes to a head in Love Me, leading to an emotional confrontation between Stewart and Yeun’s characters, as well as to the central questions of “What makes me me?” and “What does it mean to be alive?”

Love Me’s Thesis Statement About Branded Vs. Changing Selves Is Perfect For Kristen Stewart & Steven Yeun

The directing duo also discusses the “scary” aspects of working together.

ScreenRant: Sam, what were your earliest conversations with Kristen and Steven like? Because they obviously bring so much of themselves in these different forms.

Sam Zuchero: Well, they’re uniquely positioned to understand the difference between a branded self and a self. A branded self is where everyone sees you as the same thing. Any person can look you up online and make a determination about who you are, as opposed to the past, where different people would know you as different things, and you were able to be many different things as opposed to one static branded element.

In order to move past the branding, Me has to be willing to shed the behaviors of Deja that it has taken on, which would leave anyone feeling vulnerable. Similarly, the Zucheros must be open and honest about their stylistic choices when working together – something they do very well, even if it leads to minor difficulties at times.

Though the directing partners were тιԍнт-lipped about their next project, they did expand on why the lines of communication must remain open while working together:

Andy Zuchero: We’re doing a couple of different projects. There’s one that I think is the closest to us — probably even closer about our relationship, just in a different context, let’s say.

But I think that was one of the fun parts of Love Me. Anytime that we could have a conversation through the art that we were making, it was exciting. Maybe a little bit explosive, but it always ended up [productive].

Sam Zuchero: It’s scary. Which is always [true]. I’m always scared to climb to the top of a mountain, but I’m really happy I get up there.

Andy Zuchero: And you learn a lot doing it.

Steven Yeun’s Tiktok Dance Sequence In Love Me Is All Too Real For Many Of Us

Sam & Andy Zuchero reveal who came up with “I Don’t Like It Here” and what it means.

ScreenRant: My favorite part of the movie is probably IAm’s angry dance sequence. Where did that idea first come from, and who came up with the “I Don’t Like It Here” song?

Andy Zuchero: Oh, that’s Sam. This is a nice plug. Shoutout to Sam’s brother, Josh.

Sam Zuchero: He is a musician. We asked him when we were on set. We were like, “Can you make some TikTok songs for us? Because we need them for the shoot.” He just quickly whipped up a couple of them, and that one, I just [loved]. “I don’t don’t like it here!:

Andy Zuchero: He did one measure, and we just thought it was so funny that we took that measure and just [looped it].

Sam Zuchero: Yeah, we did it the whole time.

I just loved how we all hate branded content, we all hate social media, we hate influencers — blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But we all have Instagram. We all search ourselves and other people constantly, whether we like it or not. I just thought it was really funny that he’d be like, “Forget this. I hate her for doing this,” and then just do it himself.

The Zucheros’ response reveals an undertone of humor to the proceedings of Love Me, which tie Me and IAm’s sincerity in their search for connection together. After all, we don’t have to be AI to accidentally wind up copying someone else in our search for a unique idenтιтy. While the conversation still has many more layers, given the impact of advancing technology on the endangered environment, Stewart and Yeun’s new movie certainly provides much food for thought.

More About Love Me (2025)

Long after humanity’s extinction, a buoy (Kristen Stewart) and a satellite (Steven Yeun) inherit the Earth, and with only the internet as their guide, learn what it means to be alive and in love. In this groundbreaking first feature from Sam and Andy Zuchero, Love Me explores AI and idenтιтy through live-action, animatronics, and classic animation in an epic tale of connection and transformation.

Check out our other Love Me interview here:

• Kristen Stewart & Steven Yeun
• Steven Yeun & Directors at Sundance 2024

Source: Screen Rant Plus