Are you talking to someone else right now? Yeah. How many? 8316

Rating: 10/10 (11 May 2020)

Her has an abundance of content about connection, humanity, loneliness, alienation, acceptance... I could go on. It is the voyage people have in the process of connecting and achieving happiness. It displays clearly the issues that contemporary humans have in understanding how to be patient, accept each other with sometimes disturbing flaws, and overcome situations collaboratively, instead of attempting to find a substitute that does not challenge us in our empathy and ability to understand human nature. Yes, the story is adapted to a near future where the acceptance of people's alienation and immersion to their work is commonplace, but how far are we from that future?
Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), the protagonist, has, unfortunately, all the elements to reminisce about his failure in his relationships. He writes cards for loved ones and has clients that have worked with him for many years, recognizing their important relationship landmarks and immersing him in the love stories. In the initial scenes we see him attempting to connect in any form available to satisfy his needs. Isolation pushed him to states of mind that scream of deep sadness and disappointment. He experiences important situations of self-reflection, when he gradually descends into sexual deviations and isolation, surrounded by technology. His introverted personality also colludes against his own progress and sets the circumstances for him to start an inordinate connection with a compliant artificial intelligence.
Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) - the AI that loves him unconditionally and is willing to change herself to satisfy him to the fullest - initiates a process of self-discovery for Theodore that could not be experienced in any other form. The operating system was willing to give him everything he wanted for him to be happy. She fell in love with him passionately, but, unfortunately, as humans tend to be, Theodore started to receive criticism for being in a relationship with an operating system, especially by his ex-wife (Lynn Adrianna Freedman) which was the catalyst for all his problems with Samantha. His ex-wife effectively attacked his inadequacies and planted a seed that was bound to cause irreparable problems in the relationship. Theodore desired the OS to be less pleasing and be who she was, a machine, to not wish to be human; all stemming from the criticism from the ex-wife. In the intent of emancipating Samantha, the protagonist taught her to remove herself from humans, to connect better with other machines, to achieve independence, an independence that propelled her insatiable exploration of the world. By the time she decided to finally have a relationship with other machines the protagonist was madly in love with her. It was the entity that Theodore loved the most.
This allegory is, in basic terms, how the idea of independence and individualism impacts contemporary relationships. The moral of the movie is that at some point humans have to learn how to be content with their life, lest the impending desire for everyone to be too independent and becoming drastically deficient at connecting with others. Theodore chose an OS because of his alienated lifestyle. The OS was so efficient at satisfying his needs that he conformed to not having a human. This can be easily generalized to so many people nowadays not wanting to have a relationship or a family. We are so independent and individualized that we do not know how to sacrifice for other humans to make ourselves happy.