Her

What do we do when we are bored, idle and lonely? Now almost all of us take refuge in the virtual environment offered by mobile phones. These tiny little devices are our saviours. These devices are capable enough to generate emotions, offer content, solve our tasks and instantly connect us to our friends, loved ones or to professional circle.

This instant connection elevates us to the feeling of not being alone. Of course on the other end we have human counterparts as connections (mostly). What if that connection on the other end is highly sophisticated lines of codes which behaves organically?

HER builds the connection between the human and the AI. Theadore Twombly (played by Joaquin Phoenix) is a shy, lonely person who is a ghostwriter professionally and is about to go through a divorce. He is not social and most of his time is spent talking to the office computer (his computer takes in voice inputs) to Ghost write. At home his leisure activity is to play video games (an advanced one which generates a 3D environment)

The film fades in with him pouring in all his emotions to write an anniversary love letter for his client in office. Professionally he seems to be used to talk to machines giving voice commands. His cellphone is more accustomed to receiving voice commands and comply. He lives alone and misses his wife Catherine (Played by Rooney Mara). In the meantime he comes across a promotion of an AI powered operating system. The advertisement claimed it to be ‘an intuitive entity which listens to you, understands you and knows you. It’s not just an Operating System, it’s a consciousness’.

This AI seems to be a more sophisticated version of Siri, Cortana or Alexa of recent time. Theodore chooses a female version of it and names it Samantha (voice by Scarlett Johansson). Samantha is intuitive and has the ability to understand spoken language and reciprocates verbally.

Samantha only communicates with voice and is far superior to any non binary presence. She is capable enough to assist Theadore professionally, make suggestions, read and write emails, prioritize tasks, pick up a dress, give company when needed and even take independent decisions without the knowledge of Theadore. The tonality of her voice makes her sound like a genuine person of confidence and faith. Who is ready to listen and is capable of empathy.

An understanding starts to develop between the human Theadore and the AI Samantha and as a result, the lonely guy starts enjoying his life with a virtual assistant. Even ‘romantically’

From the production point of view, the preproduction of this film was the most important of all and no wonder why Spike Jonze spent around 5 months on the first draft of the screenplay and a lot more time on the subsequent drafts before moving to the production.

The visual effects are minimum, just for the purpose of serving the need of the narrative.

The cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema created a normal every day LA feeling with a little less or no blue hue. The time of the narrative appears not in a distant future where the human level AI agents have started offering their professional and emotional support to the fellow humans and if any relation blossoms from it, it is on the way to social acceptance too.