Set several years in the future, Spike Jonze’s Her is like The Terminator meets Nicholas Sparks — a futuristic play on the sci-fi romance genre. After a divorce leaves professional writer Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) lost and unfulfilled, he turns to an artificial intelligence operating system, OS1, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. The OS1 calls herself — rather, itself — Samantha, and is very much like Siri 2.0; she is able to provide Theodore with not only directions and information, but has the capacity to make jokes, empathize, hold conversations, and think for herself — the only thing missing is a physical body.
The future Jonze creates is not a post-apocalyptic mess, riddled by war and crime, rather, one wherein society has finally embraced the “Green” movement and is environmentally stable and sustainable. Technology is able to progress and enable programs like Samantha — a digital companion for the lonely, reclusive, or bored. The big question Her poses is what love can, and could look like in a few decades, and whether we can foster meaningful relationships with the inanimate or if technology is making us even more reclusive and withdrawn than ever.
