Man falls in love with computer pp

Rating: 8/10 (17 January 2014)

The film is set in a slightly futuristic world. The men wear their pants higher, for some reason safety pins in the pocket are a fashion statement, and the technology has pushed the frontiers in games, ads and especially apps. As Samantha our Suri has grown intuition, consciousness, and — hey, she's only para-human — a will of her own. She also has the human knack for rationalizing: "The past is just a story we tell ourselves." Hence her claim she loves Theodore (Joaquim Phoenix) more by virtue of her loving 620-odd other guys at the same time. She's nowhere more human than in her lack of moral bearings and consistency. She uses the same metaphor to dump Theodore: "It's in this endless space between the words that I'm finding myself now. As much as I want to, I can't live your book any more."
But the film is less concerned with future technology than with our present emotional paralysis. Theodore is a star employee at a company that writes letters for people who can't express themselves even to their dearest family members. He has been writing for some families for years. Good at imagining others' emotions, he can't express his own — hence his divorce. For his college friend Amy (Amy Adams) "Falling in loveis like a socially acceptable form of insanity." So she shares his susceptibility to an affair with an OS. But ex-wife Catherine (Rooney Mara) is appalled that he accepts that fake relationship in lieu of "real emotions." In providing fake emotional life for his clients, Theodore is a human form of Samantha. It's appropriate that she arranges for the publication of his better letters, because she is an externalization of his function. Though Samantha considers Theodore "an unartificial mind," he deals with artificial emotions.
Theodore's surname Twombly evokes artist Cy Twombly, whose paintings combine the most primitive forms of art with actual handwriting. As the technology looks forward the emotional issues reach back to the essential elements of human relationships. Thus Theodore's so very promising blind date (Olivia Wilde) dissolves when she wants simple assurance that he'll call again, that she won't be just a one-night stand. The film is not that deeply projected into some sci-fi future.
Before their relationship engages the physical Theodore's and Samantha's love can thrive. It's all mental, emotional, idealized. So he: "I've never loved anyone the way I loved you." And of course she: "Me too. Now we know how." She still knows only what he has projected into her, a fleshless, unrealistic shared illusion. Though Samantha is shaped out of his needs, Theodore says "I feel I can be anything with you." Not if she grows up. As partners tend to do. For more see www.yacowar.blogspot.com.