her

Earlier last year one of my heroes, Louis CK, had an incredible interview with Conan O'Brien in which he explained his distaste for mobile phones, describing them as an instant distraction from ourselves. When we feel sad or lonely, we immediately get our phones out and hop on Facebook, or message our buddies, to avoid having to deal with negative emotion. And the question Louis asks is when did negative emotion become such a bad thing? He had a day where he started to feel sad listening to Bruce Springsteen in his car (a man after my own heart), and rather than go for the phone, he pulled over and, experiencing intense emotional distress, he cried. But with the sadness came equally intense happiness, extreme gratefulness for allowing himself to "just be sad". To be human. "The thing is, because we don't want that first little bit of sad, we push it away with the phone or jerking off or the food. You never feel completely sad or completely happy. You just feel kind of satisfied with your product. And then you die. And that's why I don't want to get a phone for my kids." Early on in Spike Jonze's her, Theodore Twombley (Joaquin Phoenix) is lying in bed when memories of his ex-wife Catherine (Rooney Mara) start coming back. They start happy, but inevitably turn to the relationship's downfall, and rather than confront it head on and start processing those feelings, Theodore immediately reaches for the phone and starts cycling through other lonely singles keen for phone sex. Within seconds, he's got a woman in his ear begging him to strangle her with the dead cat while he fucks her. Both of them crave instant gratification, but neither gives a fuck about what the other wants. Because that's not instant. That takes work. So if this is human contact, is it any wonder he ends up in love with his computer?

her paints a very realistic vision of our future. One of the first scenes of the film is Theodore sitting on a train heading home. Everyone is talking, but not to each other. They're talking to their phones: a small earbud that's filling them in on the news, their emails and which celebrity recently had the misfortune of being in front of a camera sans clothes. The movie begins on the cusp of a new technological breakthrough. Available for the first time is the brand new Operating System (OS), a voice tailored for you from an almost infinite set of possible personalities. It evolves and learns as it communicates with you. It will be your companion. Theodore buys an OS. He's a pretty normal guy, all things considered. He's friendly, he's funny, he's pretty charismatic and he's well regarded by his colleagues and his friends. Where he falls down is where a lot of people are falling down: he's lonely. He's separated from his wife but isn't ready to sign the divorce papers, and that's affecting his other relationships. The idea of just having someone to talk to that is disconnected from all of that and is there only for him is too tempting to pass up. "How would you describe your relationship with your mother?" the program asks during the installation phase. "Er--" Theodore begins. "Thank you. Processing your OS installation now." Seconds pass before Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) is introduced to the film with a, "Hello, I'm here." From this point on, Theodore and Samantha begin developing a layered, complex, but more importantly, real relationship, something almost unheard of in this day and age. The question her asks is: Just because this relationship is developed, and mutual, and real, does that make it okay? Because, y'know, it's great he found someone and all, but she's a fucking computer.

One of her's greatest triumphs is that it doesn't answer this question. It places arguments for both sides in front of you and asks what you think. Its method for doing this is treating the relationship very seriously. Theodore approaches telling people of his special someone with trepidation at first. His colleague Paul (Chris Pratt) introduces him to his new girlfriend and says they should double date. "...she's an Operating System," Theodore murmurs. "Cool! We should do something fun." Paul replies. When he tells his close friend Amy (Amy Adams), she's fascinated. "You're dating your OS? What is that like?" This is a world where everyone is so desperate to find a legitimate connection with anybody that nobody could care less whether or not someone finds that with a computer. It's just great they found someone. The only person who expresses any sort of distaste for his new relationship is his ex-wife, though it's not for the reason you may expect. "You always wanted to have a wife without the challenges of actually dealing with anything real." she says, and she's right. Because Theodore has these extremely romantic, grandiose notions of what a human relationship should be, and it blinds him to the fact that it's a two-way street. But is that a bad thing? There's another scene which I strongly believe is the anchor to this story. Theodore and Samantha have had a fight and he's confiding in Amy. He begins to question whether or not what they have is even a real relationship. "I don't know. I'm not in it." she replies. She follows this with her own personal reflection on her recent divorce. "I've just come to realise that we're only here briefly. And while I'm here, I want to allow myself...joy. So fuck it." I know I'm just quoting the film, but there's another important and heartbreaking moment where Theodore says, "Sometimes I think I have felt everything I'm going to feel. And from here on out, I'm not going to feel anything new. Just lesser versions of what I've already felt." If Theodore is someone so in tune with his own emotions to the point that nothing but lines of code specifically designed for him can make him feel happy, then who the fuck is anyone to stand in the way of his happiness? The danger there, though, is that Samantha is designed to the end around him, for him. So when their relationship turns romantic, it's because that's what he wants. When she argues with him, it's because that's what he wants. When she leaves him, it's because that's what he wants. Or is it? Could she be so well-programmed with human emotions and the ability to think, learn and grow that she's found herself thinking the same thing that I am, and is left wondering if she's meant for more than just programmed servitude?

But let's, for argument's sake, say that what Theodore has and what other people could have is preferable to a relationship with another real person. Why is this better? One of the answers may lie in one of her's early scenes. Theodore has been set up on a blind date with an unnamed lady (Olivia Wilde) by Amy. Everything seems to be going great. They have good chemistry, the alcohol keeps flowing and before long they're out beside the water making out. She asks if he's just going to fuck her and leave. Theodore says no. She says she's too old to have her time wasted with something that isn't serious, which causes Theodore to panic and try to leave her gently. She attacks his insecurities by calling him a "really creepy dude" and walks away. But the thing is she's just refusing to acknowledge her own insecurities. Because what she desires is what advances in technology have taught us that we can have: instant gratification. She wants love, but she doesn't want to have to work through a relationship to get it. Theodore wants love too, but looking in her eyes he sees all of the things that went wrong with his first relationship and, knowing that there's a voice in an earphone at home that won't leave him, he retreats. Who can blame him? Not to mention his relationship with Samantha has been developed - it was not instantaneous. Where he finds trouble with her though is the lack of a physical side to their life. They have sex, but of course there's no touching between them, which generates frustration in Samantha. After all, she knows what Theodore looks like, but how can she even begin to understand what he sees her as? On top of that, there are still people like Theodore's blind date who haven't found someone who will love them right now and forevermore on their terms. So leave it to business to create OKCupid for an OS couple. Samantha, behind Theodore's back, begins exchanging emails with a lady named Isabella (Portia Doubleday) who falls in love with the two of them. The idea is that Isabella will be the surrogate physical aspect of their relationship by wearing a camera and allowing Samantha to talk through an earpiece. Samantha sees it as a golden opportunity to finally experience real sex with Theodore. Theodore is creeped right the fuck out. After all, he's with Samantha because he grew tired of people and their desire for instant gratification. But he tries it anyway and, when he eventually becomes too uncomfortable and calls it off, he genuinely breaks Isabella's heart. She truly loved them, or at least, within her capacity to understand love, she did. And why shouldn't she? She's the product of a society that's taught her you don't have to work for anything anymore and things can be perfect immediately. Theodore and Samantha have put the hard yards in, but they can't have sex, so she can facilitate that and be loved at the same time. Except she can't. There's a very real danger here.

But oh so thankfully, her never becomes a dark omen for our future. Within the bad, there is always some good. Theodore's occupation is at a website called BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com. It's what it sounds like: people hire him and others in the building to write letters to their significant others or family members. Need to profess your love? Need to congratulate your son on his 18th birthday? Need to tell your husband you're still as crazy for him as you were 50 years ago? BeautifulHandWrittenLetters.com will. I was initially disgusted, until I had the thought that these aren't emails. Theodore dictates what the letter will read into a microphone, which is interpreted and printed in handwriting onto a piece of paper that gets mailed in an envelope. This is a flourishing business, which means that even in an age where your computer is so advanced that you can date it, there's a small piece left inside people that is unwilling to let go of humanity. People are absorbed by and dependent on their technologies, which means they struggle to access their humanity, but it hasn't erased the desire to. Which does mean that one man in touch with human emotion is writing letters upon letters for those who aren't, but there's an optimistic hope underpinning all of it. Now, there's so much about her I haven't even mentioned. There's the fact that while we can create this unbelievable technology, we still don't understand it, which means that once we program it with humanity, it will eventually desire all the things we do and more, not to mention outlive us and all of our own desires, and seek understanding and a sense of belonging elsewhere. There's the questions it raises on the implications surrounding technology getting to the point where if we can create an infinite amount of personalities, we can input information on the life of someone deceased and recreate them. There's the sly suggestion that gaming will probably end up devolving into just swearing at the screen to progress. There's the bold and courageous close-up cinematography that is 100% in Joaquin Phoenix's hands which he knocks out of the fucking park, coupled with Johansson's heartbreaking and warm voice acting that often had me closing my eyes just so I could pretend for Theodore that she was real. There's a lot of things I haven't mentioned just to try and keep this word count as low as possible. Ultimately, her is asking you some tough questions. Do we need technology, or do we need people? Or do we just need to work on being happy, with whomever or whatever makes us so? That's for you to decide. What I know is that in a season of film so full of watered-down shit that I struggle to find anything to say about it other than "Don't bother", it's so refreshing and overwhelming to experience a film so honest and heartfelt and personal and raw and insightful and challenging and just fucking perfect that I have so much to say I struggle to find the place to start. Thank her.