her (2013)
movie: Spike Jonze
Running time: 2 hours 6 min.
Rated R for language, sex, nudity.
I just saw Her, a science fiction romantic drama/comedy film written, directed, and produced by Spike Jonze. It is the story of Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) who develops a relationship with an intelligent computer operating system (OS) with a female voice and personality.
Some of the discussions that spring to my mind:
How and how much do we use the digital world as unhelpful escapism?
What in the virtual world is unreal? And when does any unreality substitute for the real, and when are there problems with this?
How and how much do we use the spiritual world as unhelpful escapism?
What is a person?
When is an imaginary friend helpful? When is this unhelpful?
Note that Spike Jonze was the director of Where the Wild Things Are, an adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s children’s book about a boy named Max who seeks to escape from his family by running away into a fantasy world.
There is no relationship with God mentioned in the film… even as a possibility to help in and through the void experienced…
Theodore Twombly’s job is Cyrano-de-Bergerac like. He writes letters for people who cannot write them at BeautifulWrittenLetters.com
There is reflection on the place and meaning of sex, impersonal, and personalised… and on “knowing” each other – involving (biblically) one flesh… What is the place of our bodies in relationships? [Small spoiler alert] What can we learn from the wordless ending?
Sometimes what you think is real isn’t what you really want or need in a relationship. That safe, unreal cyber friend is the one that either fills that void or intensifies that need to connect even more. Nothing is more scary than opening up to a virtual friend and risking that you’ll end up more lonely than before. It’s the chance we have to take though if we ever want to have that real love in our life. And sometimes wordless endings say it all and no voice is necessary.