Her Film Review

Her Film Analysis

By: Sofia Corona-Santoyo, Sabina Costea, Myriam Briand, & Jessica B. Morris

(image:http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-review-of-her-by-ray-kurzweil)

      Retrieved from rogerebert.com written by Glenn Kenny:

Year Released: 2013

Running Time: 126 min

Director: Spike Jonez

Screenwriter: Spike Jonez

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzV6mXIOVl4  

         Theodore Twombly, is a writer living in the near future, where the dependency on digital technology has significantly increased. After having gone through a tough separation, Theodore is left unsatisfied, bored, and “disconnected” from the world. Intrigued by an ad he sees on his way home from work, he decides to sign up for an artificially intelligent operating system personalized for him. The OS, Samantha, and Theodore become an important part of each other's lives, as she helps him feel better about himself and life in general and he helps her learn about the world outside of the computer. They eventually fall in love and for a while, they have a good relationship. Eventually, they both begin to have their doubts, seeing as they live in different worlds and they operate differently. As time goes on, Theodore becomes increasingly dependent on Samantha, while Sam becomes increasingly independent as she forms relationships with other artificially intelligent operating systems and other humans. 

Film Techniques

           A large part of the movie is filmed with the camera at eye-level. The movie consisted mostly of conversations between Samantha and Theodore through an earbud, therefore having the camera at eye-level would help the audience feel like we are there since we normally see each other at eye level in real life.

              A significant diegetic sound in the movie was obviously the dialogue between Sam and Theodore. Since we, the audience, couldn’t physically see Sam and her facial or bodily expressions, we relied heavily on her tone of voice to know how she was feeling or what she was thinking. The only way we could know if Sam was present in the scene was if she spoke. An important non-diegetic sound in the movie was the music playing in many of the scenes of the movie, most significantly the music playing during Theodore and Samantha’s sex scenes. The music is soft and romantic, which is attempting to make the scene seem like wonderful moment, likening it to a passionate sex scene that would happen between two humans. They are making themselves feel things that they haven’t felt before. In my opinion the music is used to help aid the moment, since most humans watching it may feel weird watching and listening to a human having sex with a computer, which is an example of the uncanny valley.Another important use of music was the music Samantha would compose for Theodore, which is a diegetic sound. She would write piano pieces to describe the emotions she would feel. She also used music to describe there moments together. As they were not able to experience them together and feel emotions together, she composed music to describe that to Theodore, such as the song she composed to describe the moment they had together on the beach.

      Since a lot of the movie was filmed with the same eye-level framing, it eventually got a little boring, but the use of special techniques really helped distinguish important scenes and also added some flavor to the movie. An example of this is in the scene where Theodore is panicking because he cannot find Samantha--the camera shakes as if someone were just holding it and running with him. The shaking of the camera creates this unsteadiness in us, the audience, which allows us to feel the characters stress in the moment. Another example of this is shown in various scenes where Theodore and Samantha are having a conversation and during these conversations, Theodore has flashbacks of his ex-wife. With these flashbacks, we get insight on his thoughts and feelings towards his relationship with her, as well as things they discussed together. In order to demonstrate that they were flashbacks, a different filter would be used in those scenes. The filter would make everything a little bit blurry or it would focus on one thing and everything else was blurry. 

(image: https://www.villagevoice.com/2013/12/17/her-ilove-american-style/)

          An important prop used in the movie would be the earbud. Even before Sam, this earbud was always in his ear. He could listen to his emails or to his music with it. Later, when Samantha was in his life, this was their main means of communication, considering that Samantha was not a physical being. Theodore wasn’t the only one with an earbud. Everyone around him in the streets seemed to have one too. They were always connected to their earbuds, but disconnected from each other. 

         Another related prop was the camera/communication device. This device is what connected him with Samantha. She could see through the camera and see what Theodore was seeing or even see Theodore. Samantha could also send him pictures through this device. This allowed Theodore to feel like she was there with him He was able to carry around this object and it was seen as the physical representation of Samantha, a non-physical consciousness. When Samantha was not connecting to the communication device, he began to freak out as if he had lost Samantha. This communication device had become his representation of Samantha; it was Samantha. It also allowed Samantha to feel like she was there with him. It was a way for them to share experiences together, such as the picnic they shared with Theodore’s co-worker and his girlfriend. They sat the communication device between all of them, as they shared a conversation; the communication device represented Samantha’s presence. This device was a way for them to share experiences together… to a certain extent.

          Like any film, the setting is important to set the scene and communicate information that is not directly given to the audience, like the time period that this film takes place. The overall setting of the film was in a more modernized city. Everything looks clean and new. When we see Theodore’s apartment as well as Amy’s apartment, we see a mix of old and new. The buildings themselves all look clean, as many of them are made with glass and are shaped in very rectangular clean-cut shapes, which gives a modern feel to the scenes. However, the furniture inside the buildings is very colourful and a lot of medium brown wood is used in the furniture also, which gives a retro feel to the scenes as well. This indicates that this movie is taking place in the near future, where no drastic changes have been made except for in technology. This also allows the audience to connect with the movie and not feel so alienated, like other futuristic movies may do. We, as the audience, see that in the movie technology has evolved. Despite that humans will always be humans, wanting love and feeling heartache. We are able to see this through Theodore and Amy; they look for emotional connection even in something non-human and are heartbroken when they lose that connection.

(image:http://variety.com/2013/film/awards/oscar-and-spike-jonzes-her-a-complex-relationship-1200721716/)

 Themes and Issues
              This movie revolves around many themes such as love, sadness, friendship, and loneliness. At first, “Her” appears to be a typical love story, but going deeper into the movie and connecting it to the themes that come to light, we see that it is so much more. By analyzing the plot of this movie, it makes sense to see why Theodore, the main character, has a weird connection with a software, where only her voice can be heard; he is is lonely, desperate and anti-social. For him to have feelings for the OS is justified because he feels like it’s hard to have a human to human connection but are her feelings real, knowing that she is only a robot? 

              This addresses an issue that we face with Social Robots today; the issue of disconnecting from the world. In a scene in the beginning of the film, while Theodore is walking on the street, it is seen that everyone around him and including him is blind to the world around them and connected to their phone-earbud things. Further disconnection between humans occurs when the world is introduced to the Operating System. Theodore's OS, Samantha, becomes his girlfriend and Amy's OS, becomes her trusted companion. The AIs begin to replace humans and this movie does a good job to show it in a positive and negative light. While, the character's relationships with the operating systems show positive outcomes in their lives, like helping them move on from tough issues going on in their lives, they also show negative outcomes. They become increasingly dependent on their technologies and in the end, they are abandoned by them, leaving them in the same lonely state they were in when they first met their AIs. 

              Theodore is intrigued by this OS because he is lonely, but in reality, he only isolates himself more as he becomes more and more dependent on this technology. This also addresses the fact that we are human and we are sentient and complex being. We are capable of forming empathetic relationships, while robots may not be able to do this. A frequently asked question will robots have the ability to feel and experience or are they just programmed to act this way. We may mistaken this programming for a true relationship, which causes further issues for humans. We may forget what a true empathetic and emotional may be like; we become more like robots than humans, something we call moral deskilling. 

1539 words

Film Review
           This movie is described as a “lonely-guy movie” (Liam), as it follows the stereotype; Theodore lives alone in his apartment after he and his wife separated and he works in an office.  It shows his path of finding love, once again, and his own mental evolution after his relationship with his ex-wife that left him emotionally damaged. This movie was able to capture the beautiful experience of heartbreak and love, all together at once. By Joaquin Phoenix’s good acting, it was easy to catch his vulnerability when he faces certain situations regarding his ex-wife or when he went on the blind date. One of the strength of the movie was how easily the audience could interpret and observe the characters emotions. Either it was by their face expression, their body posture or their voice, it was easy to perceive sentiments of sadness, desperation, happiness, so goes on. Even during their sexual intercourse over the phone, it seemed extremely real. Not only this seemed real, but even the technology advances seem realistic enough to be used in our own society. It was easy to compare our technological improvement, compared to theirs and see where our inventions could lead to, in the future. 

            We found that an apparent weakness in the movie is the monotony of it. From time to time, it felt like the movie wasn’t going anywhere, leaving us with an “and…?” marked on our face. We were always waiting for something to happen, but then nothing would happen. There was no element of surprise, whatsoever. We also go a little disappointed towards the end when we thought that Samantha was going to show up as a physical representation; a robot in a human body, but instead, she only disappeared, searching for her own faith and knowledge as an artificial intelligence. Though the movie had no intense climax, seeing that a typical guy fell in love with an OS; a relationship out of the ordinary, really spiced up the whole stereotypical kind of movie of a lonely-guy (Liam). 

  

Connection to Course Content

          In class, we have been learning about social robots. Much like the social robot we discussed in class, HERB, Sam is able to grow through her experience. Though Sam does not have a physical robot body that allows her to take on physical roles, she can still be labeled as a social robot. She not only takes care of everything on Theodore’s computer, but she also takes on the role of a girlfriend in his life, which would usually be taken on by a human. She is however, much more advanced than the social robots we learned about in class, because she has the ability to feel emotions, such as love and anger. However, this leads to asking ourselves “Is she really experiencing those emotions or is she programmed to feel those emotions?” 

             This brings up the concept of selfhood that we also learned in class. Though our first reaction would be to acknowledge that like Siri on our iPhone, Sam is probably programmed into being “self-aware” and being able to say “I am Samantha”. However, then we realized that she asks herself this same question: “Are these feelings even real? Or are they just programming?” (Jonze). This suggests the possibility that she is able to reflect on her experiences and if this were the possibility then she would demonstrate what is a self-aware self. She experiences and there is something like to be Samantha the operating system. She also demonstrates a self-aware self when she says “what makes me me is my ability to grow through my experiences. Basically, in every moment I'm evolving, just like you” (Jonze). Much like us, she gains wisdom and grows through experiences she has.


             Lastly, the movie also brings up the concept of personhood. At first, Theodore does not think of Samantha as a person. Whenever he and Samantha begin to have a deep conversation, he reminds himself and her that she is a robot, and diminishes her to solely a computer that does not have issue or emotions. Their relationship is primarily based on him as they mostly talk about the issues in his life. However, as the movie goes on Samantha begins to develop a voice, who is has equal regard in the relationship. He begins to acknowledge that she too can have feelings and she is not only a computer and therefore listens and treats her as though she was his equal. However, personhood is much trickier than this as it also takes into account society’s opinion, which we see when Theodore tells his wife about Samantha. She ridicules him for his relationship with the OS and accuses him of not being able to “handle real emotions” (Jonze), as if his relationship could not be considered a real one. 

(image: http://www.robotbutt.com/2014/07/29/the-comedy-of-her/)

Questions to get you thinking: 

1.Was Samantha really sentient or were her“feelings” just programmed responses? 

2. If you were living in a future where operating systems (OS), which are computer programs similar to Siri, were artificially intelligent causing them to have consciousness, feelings, and talk the way humans would, would you ever consider befriending or even having a romantic relationship with an OS?

3. If people started to have relationships with operating systems, how would it affect the way we interact with one another?

      Extra Information

https://contentedness.net/what-is-selfhood/

                 We chose this website because the article talks about how you perceive yourself. It also answers common questions people have about selfhood. This article relates perfectly to our movie “Her” in the sense that we as humans with bodies and flesh are still unsure of what selfhood means, how it works, and we all have different perceptions of ourselves. Just like how Samantha is unsure of what her “self” consists of considering she is an AI.     

https://www.irrmag.com/irrnewz/761-siri-becomes-self-aware-at-555am-est.ht

             We chose this second website because it talks about artificial intelligence and about Siri’s consciousness. This article in particular talks about Siri, how she is aware of what is going and knows how to respond to certain situations. It also covers how scientist have been wanting to do studies on Siri for quite some time now. This article relates to the movie “Her” because although Samantha is more evolved then Siri, but it is the same concept. Samantha was evolving throughout the movie, but she was evolving by herself through different interactions she was having with all the different people. Samantha also developed so sort of “feelings” which Siri also claims she has. 

Works Cited

       Brawn, Hariod "What is selfhood?" http://contentedness.net, no specific date. https://contentedness.net/what-is-selfhood/

      Jonze, Spike, director. Her. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2013

      Kenny, Glenn. “Her Movie Review & Film Summary (2013) | Roger Ebert.”RogerEbert.com, 18 Dec. 2013, www.rogerebert.com/reviews/her-2013. 

    

       Liam, Lacey. “Her: Spike Jonze delivers a gentle and eccentric lonely-guy movie.” The Globe and Mail, Phillipe Crawley, 18 Dec. 2013. https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/life/holiday-guide/holiday-survival-guide/her-spike-jonze-delivers-a-gentle-and-eccentric-lonely-guy-movie/article16003228/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com& 

       Maiden, Nc. "Siri Becomes Self-Aware At 5:55A.M. E.S.T." Irrelevant Magazine, no specific date. https://www.irrmag.com/irrnewz/761-siri-becomes-self-aware-at-555am-est.html

       Nichol, Mark. “7 Tips for Writing a Film Review.” DailyWritingTips. https://www.dailywritingtips.com/7-tips-for-writing-a-film-review/