Love Me Do

Love Me Do

‘Anything for you’ – Max

           

‘Love Me Do’ [2015], is a Martin Stitt written and directed film that is split between the genres of crime, drama and thriller that displays the unconventional love between invest banker Antonia (Rebecca Calder) and out of work actor Max (Jack Gordon) that causes them to commit terrible crimes.

Stitt’s film shows how opposites attract but turnout not to be so different. Initially it appears that Max is under the thumb of Antonia as she goes through Max’s wallet and takes a picture of all of his credentials, moves him into her house, watches him via security cameras and ultimately motivates him to ‘shake-up’ her boss. But after she’s done this it appears that Antonia has unleashed someone more powerful than her as Max, without a job dedicates time to plot and create characters, as if preparing for one of his few acting jobs and after one hiccup is able to commit crimes without remorse. Their desired but unexpected success after the crime starts Antonia off on a downward spiral.

Although the film has a good storyline and actors, it failed to fully win me over in the thriller aspect until towards the end as for me until then the suspense started then stopped suddenly such as Antonia taking a picture of Max’s details but then appearing to do nothing with them. This though, enabled me to be surprised when the film took an unexpected turn as Antonia became the weak one, dependant on Max.  

The use of one setting, Antonia’s home, is something that in the moment of watching the film i didn’t pick up on but is a characteristic of the film that I most prefer as it contains the action and storyline as well as creates an idea of claustrophobia which arguably pushes both characters over the edge. It does however prohibit the audience from witnessing either of their crimes which causes me to view the genres of crime and thriller matched with the film only as subgenres, which is to be expected with a film so scattered.

The drama aspect ,unsurprisingly, is clear to me as I found questioned constantly the state of their relationship through their fights and power shifts. But overall ‘Love Me Do’ did not leave completely satisfied despite its ending being somewhat unique as I was still left wanting more.