Love Me, Love Me Parent Guide

Since moving to Milan for her mother’s (Elizabeth Kinnear) job, 18-year-old June (Mia Jenkins) has made some friends at her posh international school. She’s met a boy, Will (Luca Melucci), but she’s also made an enemy. James (Pepe Barroso) first threatened her when she sat in his seat in class but when she accidentally spilled coffee on him, his behavior escalated. James grabbed June, forcibly dragged her to the locker room, undressed in front of her, and insisted that she wash his clothes. With that charming introduction, it’s clear that June has no reason to be attracted to James – or so you’d think. Despite James’s consistently disrespectful and repugnant behavior, June finds herself torn between Will and James, who are, to complicate matters, best friends. 

Generously speaking, Love Me, Love Me is not a good movie. This is the kind of movie that makes me rue that I was born with eyes, ears, and a semi-functional brain. It is an infuriating parade of sloppy tropes, wretched writing, confused acting, and characters who filled me with a base, elemental loathing. June may be dim and possessed of very poor judgement, but Will is an emotionally unstable jerk, and James is a narcissistic sociopath who presents more red flags than the Moscow Victory Day Parade. Every other character falls somewhere between “comic book villain” and “pointless”. 

At one point, one of our despicable love interests says “Trust me, this is going to end badly”, and it’s the only thing about which I trusted him. The film started poorly and continued with all the joy of a root canal, so ending badly seemed to be in the cards. The ending is as implausible and unpleasant as everything else in the movie, so I suppose I should give some grudging points for consistency – although no more than I would give to a backed-up sewer for the even coating of filth.  

Since the film is essentially 90 minutes of an 18-year-old’s lurid sexual daydreams intercut with her being ogled and harassed by the other characters (and the camera), it ranks poorly as an option for family entertainment. The bloody, if poorly choreographed, violence (James is an MMA fighter, of course), sexual harassment, drinking, and profanity do little to change this assessment. At one point, my notes just read “ewwwwwww”, so make of that information what you will. 

As an exercise in making your audience annoyed and queasy, the film is a resounding success. The story of a hapless teen girl torn between a creep and his creepier friend would be miserable even if the dialogue didn’t make me grind my teeth down to the jawbone. Love Me, Love Me is a rare experience, offering all the thrills of being stuck on public transit while high school students loudly discuss their sex lives. In short, it’s an absolutely dismal, disgusting, and seemingly endless affair. Avoid it at all costs.