Love Me could very well be mistaken for
something like the umpteen teenage movies to hit the screens, except that this
one is nothing like any of those for the sole reason that it doesn’t try too
hard to make the characters lovable like most such movies with similar subjects
try to enforce upon the audience. Here, the characters play out the feelings
that any adolescent might be going through while progressing through that discerning and trying
phase of their lives, add to that the plotline of three months having passed
since the disappearance of Melissa Kennedy in the town of Ridgedale where the
suave, silent and sweet Lucas Green (Jamie Johnston) is the lead suspect in her
vanishing. Whilst we are being familiarised with the soft and dashing Lucas, enters
the strong and nearly mannish Sylvia Potter (Lindsey Shaw) who, if not
anything, harbours unrealistic notions of falling in love with an ‘ideal man’
even as she brushes away the overtures of her childhood friend Harry Townsend (Jean-Luc
Bilodeau) who keeps renewing his love for her with regularity. Sylvia stumbles
over Lucas’s stretched-out feet at Hampton Prep and feels this instant
connection with him. Despite her initial animosity for the guy and warning by
her close friends, in particular Dayln (Kaitlyn Leeb) she falls hopelessly in
love with him until the mystery surrounding Melissa who was Lucas’s girlfriend
when she went missing threatens the entire fabric and tests the waters with
these school kids.
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As it trudges along, the lesson that this
movie teaches us is about how many times have we not had people who are genuine
get mistaken for being ‘arseholes’ when the real arseholes are the ones who go
about injuring us invisibly and yet we aren’t smart enough to detect who they
are amidst us until it is a bit too late.
Psychology brings to light that when someone intends to lie,
consciously or unconsciously, the worded expressions they instinctively take
refuge in are ‘trust me’ or ‘frankly’ or ‘believe me’ but when Lucas utters
those words ‘trust me’ you are instantly overcome by the emotion that you can
blindly trust him since those are not words stemming from the hidden untruths one
is trying to cloak, but expressions that are most humbly originating from his soul. What’s more, his
dialogues are nearly always supported by the blatant truth: it is as if what’s
in his heart is on his lips without any hesitation, and isn’t that how we are
all supposed to live – believing in ourselves when we know that we are right,
even if the world were to think contrary of it?
People say that pain evokes in us the words
that touch hearts, and it is also a presumed norm that the mega rich do not have
a heart. What people don’t know is that feelings have nothing to do with ones
financial touchstones and Lucas’s character is so well essayed in conjunction
to that misconception. I was delighted to watch Jamie: the perfect choice for
the role. He doesn’t fail to impress you with the genuine hues he lends to the character.
Those hues come from his own experiences owing to the fact that he is quite the
rock to those who require his attention in order to make their lives better. I
say so because Jamie is someone who besides being an actor, has a natural flair
to spread love via his work and is quite the man with a golden heart. He plays
in a band, and has helped raise money for a school in Kenya, and it would not
surprise me that while we are reading this, he might be planning or even doing
something in his own capacity to better this world.
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If you have observed closely, what Lucas
does at every instant on the screen is confess nothing but the facts to Sylvia,
and I didn’t quite appreciate how she distrusts him. In one frame of mind, she
gives Harry a piece of her mind about how they could try and understand him
rather than judge or talk about him, and in another, she falls a victim of
hearsay. Agreed the young are unsure and confused, but the golden rule regardless
of age is that you ‘never give up’ on the ones you think you know. True love
knows to discern between the real and the fake, and instead of standing by him
in a moment of her uncertainty, she fails him rather miserably.
Loneliness makes people do many things.
While some take the crutch of addiction to beat their desolation, some become
the crutch of others to make sure they never let another feel what they are
missing. What I adored is how the character of Lucas has been made to be like
the ocean, forgiving and yet festive. Forbearing yet frightened. I appreciated
the manner in which he follows his heart (in attaining the peace of mind) by
doing what he likes even if it is as simple as writing reviews of the music he
loves. That apart, there were some beautiful refinements to this film, for
instance when Sylvia asks Lucas what his dad does while she’s exploring about
his bedroom, he replies with immense modesty, “He travels a lot.” That is a
marvellously delicate method of handling an instance that one normally would
use to brag or boast being in the position that he is in the film. It only
shows us the maturity of the character regardless of what people surmise of him.
It takes wisdom to be able to find peace in oneself, to be able to seek solace
in loneliness, and what a brilliant man this Lucas is really. Some have argued
with me that his character is a bit too forgiving, but aren’t there many amidst
us who are like that: who harbour feelings much deeper, while the majority
thinks them to be shallow. The other subtlety I treasured, and many of the
teens ought to take heed, is how Lucas doesn’t pursue Sylvia until he has made
certain that she and her friend Danny do not share any romantic interest. This
might sound a bit trivial to the age that thinks they know everything, but that
is a great on-screen display of manners and I only wish the youth, specifically
men, could nurture such an attribute in case their innate nature hasn’t genetically
yielded them this very quality.
The three glaring flaws I found in this
film are:
1 – How Lucas tends to always show up at
Sylvia’s classroom. Obviously he had classes of his own to attend.
2 – How the super attentive comic book
killer friend Harry cannot hear the car approaching the driveway of the cabin
when he is forcibly making Lucas write his suicide note. For a moment one could
give him the benefit of doubt that he was a bit too self-absorbed to notice
what was happening around him, and yet that explanation holds no good really.
3 – Coming to the largest cavern: the
female lead’s character could have been essayed better. It seemed as if writer
Kat Chandler was in a bit of a hurry given that her characterisation lacked any
range and depth.
When someone turns to you in life and expresses,
“You know me better than anyone!” and pleads, “Please, please I am losing it,
everything seems to messed up. I don’t have anyone.” you NEVER leave them and
walk away by uttering coldly, “I can’t be a part of this.” When somebody
reaches out to you earnestly and you fail them, you certainly don’t deserve a
second chance, but Lucas being Lucas, forgives even that flaw in the character
of the woman he loves, although in reality only a handful are like him, and
beware people that not all Sylvia’s would be lucky to get a chance to make up
for their stupidity.
The supporting cast was satisfactory in
their own unique fashion that added the much warranted flavour to the tale. I
only wish that specialists had handled the cinematography and the soundtrack in
order to lent it the much necessitated charm and enchantment.
To sum up, the kernel of life is such that each
of us gets someone who cares for us in some form or the other, and in an
instance of that not happening, we find solace in ourselves by giving to others
what we have missed in our lives just like Lucas does. A bow to you, Jamie, to
having added verve to such an unpretentious and yet profoundly balanced
character because what you have done really is service to mankind since those
who follow you ardently will try to mimic your good nature and even if it were
to change the outlook of a single person, on screen, or otherwise, I think you
would consider it a job well done!
