Love Me is the sort of series that may, at first, sound overly familiar. The gently crafted and polished first season explores dealing with death (that old chestnut!) and the blossoming of new romances (not exactly a brand new narrative). The second, which picks up nine months later, returns to the Mathieson family – consisting of adult siblings Clara (Bojana Novakovic) and Aaron (William Lodder) and their father Glen (Hugo Weaving) – to flesh out a new chapter in their romantic relationships. Initial sparks have faded and there are fresh challenges to overcome.
If it sounds a bit ordinary, press play on this series (the first Australian original from Binge) and you’ll quickly find yourself immersed in compelling drama and surrounded by fully dimensional characters, who, like the show itself, are very middle class and very Melbourne. There’s lots of wine quaffing in lots of lovely homes and well-furnished establishments. Even its handsome presentation feels very middle-class: the colour grading is crisp and clear; Melbourne’s skyscrapers look steely and big-league; and the Yarra is … well, brown as always, but at least it’s a vivid, glossy brown.
Love Me’s second season director Bonnie Moir, who replaces Emma Freeman, regularly cuts to long shots of the city, as if to say: these are only some of the stories that make up the Melbourne experience. The season begins with Clara and her partner Peter (Bob Morley) chatting to his parents, who suggest that “maybe now he’s ready to settle down”. “What do you reckon Clara, is he ready?” they ask. That question might equally apply to her. Soon Clara and Peter are getting busy in the kitchen, and I don’t mean preparing dinner. It’s one of those hot-and-heavy on-screen sexual encounters that made me want to ask them: “Do you realise beds are much more comfortable?”
We then return to Glen and his partner Anita (Heather Mitchell), who are also partaking in an act of carnal pleasure – outside on a brick surface. (Guess what question I wanted to ask them.) Then we re-meet Aaron, whose introduction is less sexy: listening to a colleague at his law firm describing an upcoming case as a “capital ‘O’ opportunity”. He’s now a father to a baby with ex-girlfriend Ella (Shalom Brune-Franklin). There’s a sweet moment when Glen meets his newborn granddaughter, and Christine (Sarah Peirse), his late ex-wife, appears next to him, smiling from beyond the grave; somehow it is neither cloying or sentimental. Babies are also on the mind of Clara and Peter, who have been trying to get pregnant for months.
The Mathiesons feel like a totally genuine family: you never doubt them as a collective, and performance-wise each actor chips away at their role from different perspectives. Novakovic’s performance as Clara has a lot of subtlety; she pulls it right back and lets small gestures resonate. As Aaron, Lodder conveys a rounded depiction of twentysomething youthfulness: quite mature, while also giving us small reminders here and there that he’s still configuring his worldviews and his idea of adulthood. It is never directly stated, but having a baby seems to have accelerated this trajectory.
And Weaving, well, he’s one of Australia’s best; practised in making acting seem effortless. There’s an appealing universality in his portrayal of Glen: a sweet, ageing everyman, described in the second episode as a “lovely, big-hearted bear of a dude”. Mitchell brings a soft charm and a withdrawn quality to Anita: we like her, but we wonder what she’s keeping from us. And the excellent, if underused Kim Gyngell contrasts the rest of the performances, bringing an air of volatility and abrasiveness as Anita’s brother-in-law, Richard.
The energy between the actors feels organic and most of the time the dialogue doesn’t feel too “written”. Love Me creates a space where you feel comfortable and enjoy being in the company of its characters, none of whom are the most striking of presences, but they maintain the ability to surprise. The pace is so steady that there are barely any peaks and troughs, which is good and bad: it doesn’t have the thrill of a bumpier ride, but nor does it dillydally or hit slow points. Love Me is nothing if not even-tempered – like a lovely, carefully modulated piece of music.
All six episodes of Love Me season two are available to stream on Binge and Foxtel now.
