Her, the Movie and its Scientific View of Human Life

“She doesn’t just see things in black and white, she sees this whole grey area and she’s helping me explore it.”

The movie Her – a lonesome man, Theodore, who is separated from the love of his life only to find new love that does not exist in terms of a human, physical existence. His Operating System, Samantha, has taken over his very psyche, and pulled him out of his misery. Finally, he again has somebody to indulge himself into, in a wholesome way.

What is love, and how is it that we all feel it in different ways? Is it to immerse yourself in the thought of another person, their smell, their different mannerisms and movements and the different curves and ridges along their flesh? Or is it some sort of connection shied away from the eye?

The interesting thing about this movie is how Samantha is personified by her deep interests in human experience. How she yearns for something that all humans take for granted, the ability to own and use their senses – sight, vision, taste, sound, and touch. Humans lose touch of the importance of these senses, the importance of blending these senses with the senses of other humans, and all the other emotions in between two bodies in their ways of connecting with one another.

What is it that constitutes companionship, though? Apart from the physical connection, is the emotional connection stronger? Her depicts this. It shows that despite Samantha not being a human, her ability to emotionally connect with Theodore suffices enough to make him wholesome again, and make her feel the same way a human would.

So then, does a physical connection matter? Most humans nowadays are experiencing long distance relationships, relationships where most couples do not feel each other for a long time, sometimes never depending on either lover’s circumstances. But they hear each other, and they feel the emotional attachment to one another, and that simply suffices to them.

To feel, initially, between them, Samantha constantly sends through piano pieces she wrote to express what she is feeling, her interpretation of things in the world wherein their very beings are captured. Does music then, ignite the senses? Does it have the ability to replace? To both conceal and construct?

Theodore writes love letters for a living – he knows a little bit about members in the couples he writes for, enough to not have met them and been with them physically, he is able to conjure up feelings that not even either member in the couple can conjure up even with the constant enticing of their five senses. This is a huge signifier in the movie because it shows how precise and fulfilling Theodore’s connection is with those he does not know – and the irony lies in the fact that Samantha soon merges with her own and leaves him, despite how well he thinks he knows her.

Theodore has a system that knows his true, inner self, a system that is refined in learning that about its users, a system that has the ability that most of us do not hold. Perhaps humans get too lost in sexual desire, in lust, in their bodies’ desires to focus on what their minds desire, what rocks gently their hearts and souls to a deep serenity, what challenges their intellects and forces them to internally grow. And that is what grants them their inner sanctity, the fact that they are known inside utterly, and accepted, that they no longer have to create different identities to please the ones they fall in love with in real life.

In the same way, though, connecting with the body of the other person, interlocking both the soul and the body is stronger than having to imagine a physical form. One begins to read the latter’s body like a map, like a young boy who has drawn a so-called treasure map, he is the only one who knows the exact coordinates no matter how long someone else studies the map, the boy who drew it will know it in its true form, will know it in the best possible way.  Allow that boy to grow into a man and he will be so accustomed to this map that he dare not stare at another in the same way, because unlike other people attempting to draw a map and follow it, he actually can find the treasure. It is his treasure, and it is located deep inside her soul and he is the only one with the coordinates to it all.

And that is how Theodore found companionship in the end – he connected with his ex-wife, Katherine, but only in some ways, and soon she changed beyond his knowledge, beyond his map, and he no longer held the map to her treasure. After having both experienced what it is to have a faux love, per se, or a faux companionship with an Operating System, Theodore and Amy soon enjoy each other’s companionship. They soon interlock internally. Amy says that “we’re only here briefly. And while I’m here I want to allow myself joy.” The fact that their time alive is so brief and delicate had driven them to allow each other to fall for each other – the list of necessary similarities have been ticked, between them – they were both abandoned by their spouses, they both sought companionship, they found companionship with Operating Systems which soon left them too, and they came to the realization that they either had each other or nothing, nobody.

I think Theodore had a rude awakening when Samantha, his Operating System, said that “I used to be so worried about not having a body, but now I truly love it. Now I’m growing in a way I couldn’t if I had a physical form. I mean, I’m not limited, I can be anywhere and everywhere simultaneously – I’m not tethered to time and space in the way that I would be if I was stuck in a body that’s inevitably going to die.” At that stage, Theodore realized he was truly different to Samantha, that her build allows her to circumnavigate through the technological sphere that is ever evolving, ever transforming and ever living, however he exists for a small matter of time before he simply does not – their paths cannot coincide properly because he awaits his demise and she simply grows bigger, intellectually.

Samantha describes this difference perfectly, “It’s like I’m writing a book, and it’s a book I deeply love, but I’m writing it slowly now. So the words are really far apart and the spaces between the words are almost infinite. I can still feel you, and the words of our story, but it’s in this endless space between the words that I’m finding myself now. It’s a place that’s not of the physical world, it’s where everything else is that I didn’t even know existed. I love you so much, but this is where I am now, and this is who I am now.  I need you to let me go. As much as I want to, I can’t live in your book anymore.” The writing of the book is slowed down because while Samantha is progressing rapidly, and growing, Theodore is still himself – they both now have different pleasures, him in need of a companion and her in need of growth and discovery. When she speaks of “a place not in the physical world” she is stressing to him that he simply cannot be with her because his state of being is only existent in physicality. Her state of being is in some form of mental world, some world where mental beings exist. Samantha simply cannot restrict herself to the impediments of earth, or humans, or Theodore. Their needs have altered, in that Samantha does no longer need the human experience, she needs more. The biological human needs were what Theodore sought, whereas Samantha sought the abstract sense - things beyond the human understanding.

“I was bothered about all the ways that we are different, but then I realized we were all the same. We’re all made of matter.” The same way that Theodore has needs, Samantha has needs. Overall, I request that you watch and enjoy the poetic beauties of the film, and I suggest you fall in love with someone, not something.