Abhiroop Das
Directed by Roger Kumble, Prime Video’s ‘Love Me Love Me’ is a romance drama movie that journeys with June from London to Milan, Italy. She steps into the famous St. Mary’s International School, hoping to make the best high-school memories possible. However, her dreams are shattered by the surprise arrival of James Hunter, the school’s most infamous student, who also happens to be an MMA prodigy. June and James start the movie with a fight, but as time passes, they find themselves more drawn to each other. At the same time, James’ best friend, Will, also develops feelings for June, and what results is a series of interpersonal knots that confound just as much as they pull at the trio’s hearts. Throughout this entire ordeal, St. Mary’s serves as more than just the setting; in some way, it becomes the skeleton key to navigating their love triangle.
St. Mary’s International is a Fictitious Elite School Based in Milan
St. Mary’s International School is a fictional location created by writers Veronica Galli and Serena Tateo specifically for ‘Love Me Love Me.’ Notably, the movie itself is based on Stefania S.’s Wattpad series of the same name, and the name St. Mary’s comes from there. However, instead of adapting the place exactly as it is, the creative crew adds to the existing descriptions of the school in their own way. The biggest change in that vein is the shift of locations from Laguna Beach, California, to the city of Milan in Italy. This inevitably switches up the story’s entire visual aesthetic, and to bring the best out of it, the creators chose to film in Italy, capturing its picturesque vistas on-site.
Both the exteriors and interiors of St. Mary’s were lensed inside the patrician Villa Mondragone, a historic location in Castelli Romani, Italy, which dates back to the 16th century. Alongside being a picture-perfect location, the villa is also known to have housed the famous Voynich manuscript at one point in history. For the purposes of ‘Love Me Love Me,’ the crew took over many iconic locations within the villa, redressing them to fit the classroom setting. While the movie also depicts a hidden chamber within the villa, in reality, this was likely shot in one of its many expansive rooms and indoor structures. Villa Mondragone is an up-and-coming filming location of choice for many filmmakers, and its utilization in the movie shows how flexible it can be as a backdrop.
While St. Mary’s may be an invented premium school, there is a chance that it uses real-life schools of a similar nature in Italy as a reference point. The closest parallel appears to be St. Louis School of Milan, an elite British school in Milan, which is spread across three campuses in Milan, named Archinto, Caviglia, and Colonna. While St. Louis does appear to check many of the boxes, the creators of ‘Love Me Love Me’ have not alluded to any such connection as of writing, and these similarities appear to be superficial at best. Instead, it is more likely that the idea behind St. Mary’s comes completely from the movie’s creative team, using the book counterpart as a reference.
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