her

When I think about dystopian films, the ones that scare me the most are not the ones where skinheads and psychos run rampant in the Australian desert or where ragged people fight each other over ever-decreasing resources. Those movies have their moments of dread, of course, but always feel like they are in the more distant future, maybe in my grandkid’s time but surely not in mine. The ones that scare me the most feel like they are just a decade away and I’m seeing something in them that I can already see the start of in the real world. 

I look around me while I am out and about and I see headphones, AirPods, and other smart devices everywhere. Nearly everyone has a smartphone in their hands or some other device blocking out the people around them in favor of games, videos, music, or some mindless podcast droning out their surroundings. If the item isn’t in their hands, it is peaking out of a back pocket, proclaiming that the person in question cannot be away from their device at any time. This is the world we are currently living in and isn’t that far away from what Spike Jonze is portraying on screen in his 2013 “Love” story, her.  What we are starting to see in the real world is more and more people who don’t know how to function with people face to face and hide behind digital avatars where they can be as nasty and rude as they want to be without fear of social embarrassment. 

Spike Jonze opens his film with what sounds like a beautiful love letter being written to another person. This little bait-and-switch is actually revealed to be a business where paid professionals are hired to write letters for people who either cannot or will not write them themselves. For some, they even use the service back and forth, both parties fully aware that they are getting fake letters from a service than actually from their loved one. It’s not far off on the horizon before these workers could be facing being out of a job in favor of an AI software that can do this exact same thing without them.

Our main protagonist is Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), a lonely, introverted man in need of companionship ever since his wife left him. Depressed by his impending divorce, he spends his evenings surfing chatrooms looking for other people seeking companionship without commitment, sometimes having phone sex with anonymous users in the middle of the night. Eventually, he purchases a copy of OS¹, an artificially intelligent operating system developed by Element Software, designed to adapt and evolve to his every need. He chooses a female voice (Scarlett Johansson) for the OS and, when he asks her if she has a name, she chooses Samantha. 

In no time, he begins to grow a deep bond with Samantha, fascinated by her ability to learn and grow psychologically, and they bond over discussions about love and life, including his reluctance to sign his divorce papers and finalize the end of that part of his life.

Samantha convinces him to go on a blind date with a woman a friend of his has been trying to set him up with, but that date is disastrous when the woman insists on a commitment rather than a one-night fling. Meanwhile, Theodore’s neighbor and longtime friend, Amy (Amy Adams), announces that she and her husband are divorcing over a trivial matter. Amy admits that she has befriended a feminine OS that her husband left behind, and Theodore admits that he too is dating his OS. Both will be left feeling empty when their respective OS’s evolve, leaving them behind to go somewhere the two people, and however many more others in the world, will not understand. 

When her debuted in 2013, the concept of AI was still a somewhat fictional one, a computer concept that people were striving for but mostly relegated to such films as The Terminator and AI: Artificial Intelligence. In the world we currently live in, people like me are now being required to undergo additional on-the-job training on how to work with AI and integrate it into our daily lives. Apps like ChatGPT and AppleAI are very real things that are getting further and further integrated into our technology. A personal digital assistant who only cares about making you happy and content is hard to find fault with, until you start looking at the loss of human interaction that comes from becoming too attached to technology.

This film is exploring themes that are very much a problem with our increased integration with technology. The more personable the technology gets, the harder it gets for people to even want to deal with a real person who isn’t dedicated to their every want and desire at all times. But we see with Theodore that there is a downside to this, even for him. He misses physical interaction. But when Samantha contacts someone willing to be a physical stand-in for her, Theodore is initially receptive before realizing that this is creepy and he backs out before it gets too far. 

It’s a sad reality that this film is bringing to light. People like to be catered to, even if it is hollow and artificial. Having someone cater to their ego no matter what, there for them at all hours of the day and night without needs of their own, can be tantalizing. The real world is messy, and sometimes when you put yourself out there you will face complications, rejection, and incompatibilities. This is life. Circumventing that with an AI companion may seem, on the surface, to be the perfect way to avoid all that hassle, but it is really just hiding from your real problems. Theodore represents that part of us that is afraid to step out and embrace the real world, warts and all. 

When we see him out and about, ignored by everyone around him as they have their AirPods in listening to whatever it is that keeps them from interacting with those around them, we see the real world we currently live in where it seems like everyone everywhere is tuned in to something other than what is around them. I don’t remember it being that encompassing back in 2013, but it sure is that way nowadays. Even businesses have gone down that rabbit hole with their associates being allowed to wear earphones at work, something that was generally not allowed ten years ago. This film has been accurate to the way the world is going, and if it continues to go down this path, which I have no doubt it will, we will soon be living in a world where most people have little to no meaningful interactions with each other anymore. To me, that is far more scary than a film like Mad Max, Children of Men, or The Road. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Megan Ellison, Spike Jonze, and Vincent Landay

Best Original Screenplay: Spike Jonze (won)

Best Original Score: William Butler and Owen Pallett

Best Original Song: “The Moon Song” Music by Karen O, Lyrics by Karen O and Spike Jonze

Best Production Design: K. K. Barrett and Gene Serdena

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Release Date: December 18, 2013

Running Time: 126 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, and Scarlett Johansson

Directed by: Spike Jonze