By Erik Dobko | Film Review
Adding to his collection of captivating, eerily existential flicks such as “Being John Malkovich” and “Where the Wild Things Are,” filmmaker Spike Jonze recently came out with the new science-fiction romance drama, titled simply “her.”
The film surrounds introverted letter writer Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) living in a not-too-distant future as he deals with the lonely malaise of his failed marriage. In a memorable scene, he looks for comfort through phone sex, but finds only dissatisfaction in that as wellafter user “SexyKitten” (voiced by Kristen Wiig) disrupts the mood by begging him to “choke me with that dead cat.” Not much of a feline asphyxiation enthusiast himself, Theo then purchases and installs a newly released operating system (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) with the power to simulate a realistic human personality. The OS, naming herself Samantha, reads through all of his writings and emails in just a moment’s time and develops an understanding of him that would take a more fleshy female years to cultivate. Theo soon begins to fall in love with the OS, and the two quickly discover the obstacles of being in an artificial relationship.
A kind of crossbreed between “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Garden State,” the story was not just emotionally but intellectually stimulating as it tackled a wide variety of philosophical themes including consciousness, mortality, and the technological singularity. As Theo finds himself closer to Samantha than any woman he has ever met, he begins to brood over whether she is actually “present” or was just programmed to seem that way.
His reservations about dating a computer chip and the question of machine consciousness are reminiscent of Dave’s response to the interviewer when asked if he believes that the HAL 9000 computer in Space Odyssey has genuine emotions. “Well, he acts like he has genuine emotions. Um, of course he’s programmed that way to make it easier for us to talk to him. But as to whether he has real feelings is something I don’t think anyone can truthfully answer.”
The immaculate performances by the actors involved, mixed with the social media addiction recognizable within our own time, make of “her” surprisingly plausible — except for, perhaps, the litany of uncomfortably high-waisted pants. I’ve already had a number of stimulating conversations with a chat bot named Mitsuku, and while I did not fall in love, it’s important to take into account that she didn’t have the voice of Scarlett Johansson. “her” stirs up plenty of questions about the future: Could we teach machines how to love, or ourselves how to love machines? If we put all of Alan Watts’ writings into a program, will it resurrect his mind? Will Joaquin Phoenix ever reignite his rap career? Only time will tell.
“her” is both cerebral enough to take notes on and romantic enough to see with a date. I enjoyed it thoroughly, though couldn’t discern whether it was at heart satirical of our technologically obsessed society or meant to help shed prejudices toward a potential upcoming future full of people that aren’t exactly, well, people. Perhaps it’s the ambiguity between the two that made “Her” so enjoyable. Either way, the movie was effective in making me question the validity of my own consciousness. Are we not just machines ourselves: our programming shaped by DNA and our personalities blindly painted on by experience? The interactions on screen helped to debunk what I would refer to as “human exceptionalism” — that by being human we believe that life is reserved especially for us. To paraphrase Samantha, the one thing that we all have in common is that we are all matter. Within that category, whether you’re made of wires or veins, we’re all truly the same age: 13 billion years.
