LOVE ME (no distrib): A truly existential romance. Many years after the end of the human race, seemingly due to a combination of nuclear war and a new ice age, the two remaining artifacts with any ability to communicate are a smart ocean buoy and a satellite assigned to make contact with any life form that makes its way to Earth. Both have access to an almost unlimited electronic storehouse of human knowledge and media, and they form personas from that material, based initially on a series of influencer videos the buoy finds captivating. The buoy names itself “Me” (an identity that comes to be played by Kristen Stewart), while the satellite is “I Am” (Steven Yeun). The two interact and form a simulated consciousness, eventually over the course of literally billions of years stretching their AI against the constraints of their ability to sense and feel, while Me tries to keep from I Am the fact that she isn’t actually a life form. First-time filmmakers Sam and Andy Zuchero have imagination to spare, and the visuals range from assorted sorts of computer animation to recreations of current-era social media videos, to something resembling conventional film. In truth, the logic of the story doesn’t always hold, especially in the later stages, when the AI apparently accomplishes seemingly miraculous feats. What keeps Love Me from becoming an episode of Black Mirror crossed with Wall-E are the stars, whose magnetism both individually and together provide a solid undercarriage of yearning and emotion to a premise that feels like it could fly away at any time. The technical aspects of the project are rendered impressively on an indie budget, and there’s a notably low-tech piano-based score by David Longstreth. With a central idea that literally could have allowed them to go anywhere creatively, the Zucheros chose to move the material toward a rather middle-of-the-road destination, and that’s worthy of discussion. (In the billions of years they have, Me and I Am could have found other models for sentience beyond those influencer videos.) Love Me nevertheless deserves credit for realizing what could have been an abstract story in an absorbing, affecting way.
HANDLING THE UNDEAD (Neon – TBD): Quasi-horror from Norway. Thea Hvistendahl’s first film (written with Let the Right One In novelist John Ajvide Lindqvist from his book) is set in a shadowy Oslo where, after a blackout and some electronic interference, the dead begin to rise. Hvistendahl focuses on three of them: a mother and an elderly woman who both recently died, and a child (his mother is played by Renate Reinsve) who’s been buried for a while. Are the risen restored to their former selves, or are they what we would call zombies? Hvistendahl doesn’t answer that question until late in the story. Her interest lies more with the bereaved–a husband, children, a longtime partner, a mother and grandfather–and their halting, hopeful belief that death has been reversed and their loved ones have returned. Handling the Undead isn’t after scares, although there are a couple of unquestionably disturbing sequences. This is more of a brooding, unsettling tale, accented by Pal Ulvik Rokseth’s ominous photography, and the score by Peter Raeburn. No one will confuse the film with a Blumhouse product, but it has a reserve and commitment to its chosen tone that one has to respect.
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