Her, a romantic-comedy, drama science fiction film set in a futuristic utopian Los Angeles, although not exactly farfetched from today’s society, illustrates the monotonous life of Theodore Twombly, an introverted, divorcé, love letter writer for the popular website BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com. Theodore’s career is seemingly paradoxical to his real life, which lacks romance and companionship. Nevertheless, Theodore takes fulfillment in his work and enjoys the intimacy he provides for couples, family members, and friends. It is quite obvious that film writer, director, and producer Spike Jonze intentionally highlights the popularity of such a website that could make an authentic hand written letter for those who are too busy or those unable to articulate their feelings in a meaningful way, demonstrating our societies growing reliance on technologies. In spite of a struggling love life, Theodore appears to be just going through the motions of life rather than actually living. However Theodore’s tedious life is about to take a dramatic turn when an unimaginable, entirely new, operating system (OS) is released. The highly advanced technology functions on an almost chilling personal principle by initially asking character questions of the user, ultimately casting Theodore with his ideal hyper-sophisticated artificial intelligence communicator. In the end a female voice called Samantha is assigned to Theodore. ‘Samantha,’ although not a physical human being is designed to keep the customer of the OS organized, give personal advice, and somehow make intimate suggestions.
As the initial peculiarity wears off, Theodore become far more comfortable with the idea of sharing personal feelings, thoughts, and plans with an OS. As a viewer, I observed the growing relationship between Samantha and Theodore and quickly overlooked that the relationship is between a human and an intelligent software system. The lines begin to blur when Samantha shifts toward a sympathetic and regretful that she was not a living organism. This concept of acceptance of technology to replace human relations is uncomfortably realistic. With current systems such as Siri for iPhone and Skyvi for Android it is apparent that today’s society is not far from advanced operating systems that can hold a conversation with the user.
The relationship is eventually faced with a physical intimacy impasse. Until Samantha suggests bringing forth a “surrogate”; a women willing to play the role of Samantha to fulfill Theodore’s sexual needs. This poses the questions: will there be a future market for surrogates to role-play in a relationship between humans and technology? And how will these affect relations between people? All in all a highly captivating and intriguing concept that may be perceived as unforeseeable however I believe society has already unconsciously entered into this paradigm.