This original Australian drama presses where it hurts, reminding us that pain, anguish, and love are vital and so often missed.
The Mathieson family are in the thick of it. Clara (Bojana Novakovic) is seeking a relationship though can’t seem to find something more than the man-babies or ‘friends with benefits’ available. Her father Colin (Hugo Weaving) is in his 60’s and head-first in the midst of emotional upheaval; all the while trying to work out his needs and values in a brand new world. Aaron (William Lodder) is studying hard at uni and in the midst of a deeply physical and emotionally destructive relationship.
Each one looking to another and asking will you LOVE ME?
Their shared experience of love and loss forces them together while threatening to tear them apart; all at a time when they need each other most. It’s brutal, humiliating, humorous, gut-wrenching, and very, very real.
Alison Bell leads a stellar team of writers (Leon Ford, Adele Vuko, Blake Ayshford), guiding us/the Mathiesons through a cacophony of experience and emotion that could have left us in a heap if not for the deft directorial hand of Emma Freeman and the stellar cast.
The central cast are rounded to perfection when supported by Bob Morley, Heather Mitchell, Sarah Perise, Shalom Brune-Franklin as Aaron’s girlfriend Ella, Mitzi Ruhlmann, and Celia Pacqula as Clara’s best friend and colleague Sacha.
The entire company are enjoyable and weave in and out of each other’s stories with a realistic ease, though special mention should be made of Pacquola’s performance. In the few scenes she has on-screen she reminds us of the importance of friendship – real, raw, know-all-your-secrets friendship – and as a comedian of great skill has deftly turned her hand to dramatic acting in a way that allows her to appropriately support yet unintentionally outshine more experienced players. It would be to our great benefit if Pacquola continued to hone this already significant talent she develops in LOVE ME.
The rarity of this performance is the pull-no-punches characterisations and Freeman’s willingness to force us to linger in the moment–often uncomfortably so. Colin’s raw pain, Clara’s fear of relationship reality, and Aaron’s single-mindedness (not the one in his skull) and devotion to Ella all allow us to reflect ourselves and our lived experiences in the lives on-screen.
The joy, minutiae, and pain of intimate relationships and friendships are laid bare and speak to the beauty of risk and the choice to invest yourself wholly in the life of someone else.
The acknowledgement of how other’s choices affect us, and how we choose to respond.
The understanding love pushes us to be better, do better, and accept that no matter how we feel sometimes it just doesn’t work out.
The series is complete with six very easy to binge episodes, though viewers are encouraged to watch one or two and let the storyline wash over you. Ponder the decisions and reflect on the choices of the characters. This triple-paired-ep approach allows the layers of performance and script dwell within you and eat at your comfort as much as offer soothing balm to your heart and places that ache.
LOVE ME is deeply-affecting Australian drama that not only assaults our already raw emotions and offers hope in the rebuilding; it reminds us that when given the opportunity to tell our authentic stories we’re among the best in the world.
LOVE ME – four and a half stars.
LOVE ME – a Binge original – has all six episodes available right now.
The series is additionally airing Mondays 8:30pm on FOX SHOWCASE in double episode pairings, and is also available on Foxtel On Demand.
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Love Me is both engaging and discomforting. The authentic characters disarm, revealing a real-life perspective which can be confronting, even triggering shadow psychic fragments in the viewer. Good! However, in my view, there is something overdone in the lack of ‘nice’ in the women. I get the point, but each female character goes too far with the ruthless (dying disabled mother; self-centred and callous doctor-daughter and her blunt colleague; new lover come instant wife of the widower (both allowing no time to mourn, respecting the dead and her son’s grieving process); son’s fast and loose f…k buddy who he developed sincere feelings for; son’s awkward best friend who is stiff and fearful. While these archetypal characters exist among us everywhere, at this stage it is only the father who has the wisdom to act with a deeper self-awareness to check his flawed behaviour (when being rigid and judgemental of his new and barely known
Lover-wife). This is no doubt all part of the design but to see the only character capable of demonstrating an ethical code and empathy holistically to achieve the worst outcome at the end of Series 1 proved painful. I might be the exception but felt no pangs to root for Clara or indeed any of the other women. Not because they threatened the stereotypical so much (but they did) but because a particular dimension of character was overshadowed completely. More reflective attributes peppering future episodes will make the women more likeable. We don’t want ‘nice’ but we do want a warmer more empathetic layer to be revealed if we are to come back begging for more – IMO.