Set in the future, I estimate around 20 years from release date, director Spike Jonze movie 'Her', which is billed as a romance movie or some variation there of, has a number of interesting ideas in it.
In the realm of science fiction, this movie which is about a man named Theodore (Joaquin Phoneix) who falls in love with a sentient operating system named Samantha (voice of Scarlett Johansson), the movie has some interesting things to say about the idea of sentient man made non corporeal intelligences, what they'd be like, how quickly they'd grow and develop, ect. However where I find the film most fascinating is in its speculative examination of the psychology Gen Z in their 30's and 40's.
A sensitive generation who has grown up subsumed in a world of technology. People walk around gesticulating, sometimes wildly, as they converse with artificial intelligences that dwell in a small pocket sized device that look not unlike a prayer book.
The lonely Theodore has been separated from his wife Catherine (Rooney Mara) for around a year and is in the midst of a divorce. Theodore had known Catherine since childhood, so the lose of her in his life has left him feeling particularly unmoored. He has a melancholy job crafting 'personal letters' for other people. His best friend is an ex lover (Amy Adam) 'we dated for a like a minute in collage' who is also having relationship trouble.
I'm not saying there isn't a certain universality in these themes but most everyone (we'll get to the exception characters) seem to be having a heck of a hard time doing relationships. Theodore hangs for a bit on a kind of sex hotline with a woman voiced by Kristin Wiig who has very odd and specific hang ups (I also wanted to mention a scene where Theodore fantasies about a pregnant TV actress whose pictures he'd seen earlier that day, which speaks to the often controlling effect that pop culture imagery has on peoples romantic fantasies).
Theodore goes on a blind date with a woman played by Olivia Wilde, she's vivacious and fun and looks like Olivia Wilde, but is also a vulnerable divorcee who doesn't want jut another one night stand. Where Theodore is in his life right now he just wants a one night stand, he doesn't want to risk commitment and pain, so embarking on a relationship with a bodiless OS with the sexy voice of Scarlett Johansson seems a very appealing alternative. But Theodore will find himself ending up more committed then he intended to be, and Samantha for all her empathy and idealization, will prove more of a complicated person then either would have expected.
Theodore's best friend at work is named Paul and he is played by the likable Chris Pratt. Paul is in what appears to be a rather functional relationship with a pretty Asian lawyer. When he hears that Theodore is in a relationship again he purposes that they double date, when Theodore tells him his girl friend is an OS Paul doesn't bat an eye. He is okay with it, he is of a very tolerant, unquestioning generation. We come to learn that more and more people have been entering these kind of relationships as well.
The relationship with Samantha grows and she has needs and wants of her own, Samantha feels awkward about her lack of a physical body and purposes the use of a relationship body surrogate. There are people in this world who do this, for free. A small device, in this case one that looks like a beauty mark, is applied to the young woman's face and she does what Samantha tells her, so that she and Theodor can have physical intimacy. When you hear Samantha's gasps of pleasure and the surrogates overlap, that for me may be the most surreally real moment of the film, a portrait of the strange psychology of a world to come.
Theodore is conflicted about this whole thing, but with time his gerry rigged stop gap relationship becomes real to him, even fulfilling. But eventually it is Samantha who outgrows him. and I honestly suspected for a while that the movie would end with his suicide.
'Her' has a lot to say and will warrant revisiting. Its strange somewhat gimmickie conceit, coming out just as Siri was mainstreamed, proves an unusually effective way to explore not just broad science fiction ideas, but deeper human psychological ones. I was deeply impressed and even a little moved. ****
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