Have you seen Her? It stars Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson, and is about a man going through a divorce. He works for a company that digitally handwrites personal letters for their clients. He feels lonely and finds out through an advertisement within his city about “OS 8”. It’s supposed to be an Artificial Intelligence program that adapts to their owner/user and basically is there for them; however they need the OS 8 to be.
At first I thought it would take a twist like this old 1990s film (which I can’t recall the title) where this woman is lonely so she buys this robot and has him like a companion; someone to be there for her and then her friend tells her that she can have him in a more intimate manner and after she does, he somehow, gets jealous when she speaks to another guy and it gets very messy. Surprisingly, “Her” didn’t turn out that way; it turned out more like “Sweet November” with Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron; except no one is terminally ill.
What people may not realize is that “Samantha” played by Scarlett was a mirror image of “Theodore” played by Joaquin. Let me explain. Theodore was this guy who was able to plug himself into people’s lives; into some intimate moments so he could write these wonderful letters and then after he writes the salutation, he can remove himself from their world and that is exactly how Samantha as a whole being was.
Very much like him, she lived in the moment, she was emotional, intelligent, and creative. She could remove herself from him but then return to him with just as much affection or even more affection for him. His wife whom he was divorcing told him that he always wanted a wife without the mess of her being a real person so obviously Samantha was right for him.
That oddly enough sent him into a tizzy. He was unsure if his feelings was real, if his relationship was real with Samantha and in the background was Amy Adams, his ex girlfriend whom was his best friend, telling him that yes, his relationship with Samantha was definitely real because he felt that she was real. Did she need a body? No and Samantha understood that in the end.
Everyone who truly cared about Theodore supported him having this relationship with an AI program because if she was real for him, she was real for them and I think that speaks volumes. Something that I always say is “Acceptance is the most difficult thing to come to terms with.” and I definitely believe that it’s true. Regardless of what the situation is, we, as people either reject or accept that situation and all of its circumstances. We do it for ourselves and for those in our lives and I think that’s important. This movie is definitely a view that is parallel to that idea.
In the end, Theodore finds out that Samantha has been speaking with other people, over 8,000 to be exact and she “fell in love” with over 600 of them. In terms of numbers, yes, that is a small number, but for him, it was almost like a betrayal. Something she couldn’t truly understand the depth of emotion that he was hit with by her. She knew that the truth caused him pain but it also shed light on their relationship as a whole; she wasn’t not being faithful to him – she was a growing being that needed to connect as much as she could and in that sense, she was not human. He also had to realize that for her, all she had was time and moments that she wanted to have all at once. Oddly enough, she could do that because she was capable and in the end, he accepted that.
She brought him happiness and gave him a relationship that he was seeking and he also realized that he was out growing that relationship just as much as she was and was okay with her leaving to find herself because he was on the journey of finding himself.
Regardless of the fact that he was married prior to their meeting, Samantha was his first true love and although it could be twisted into saying, “Well, he basically fell in love with himself.” Well, yes. I think we all need to do that. Our pets give us unconditional love and regardless of whether or not we admit it, we all need to do the same for ourselves and that’s a difficult concept to accept and I feel like this movie sends that message.
We all seek a compatible companion. Why? Because we want to enjoy just talking about what we like, what we don’t like. It’s nice to have someone agree with you for once but on a deeper level, we want someone who is like us because we want to be understood; we want someone that is like us because it’s an extension of us wanting to love ourselves.
If you watch this movie, you will see how absorbed Theodore was about his life and although he loved the fact that Samantha was evolving and having her own life, he hated the space that it was creating; he could’t speak to essentially himself and that made him sad but in the end, he accepted that she was starting to be her own person where she was comfortable with who she was and he was getting there for himself.
I recommend this film. It’s warm and full of life. The technology in it is amazing too.