A film for the soul.
The first time I watched Her I was only fourteen years old. Pre-pandemic, confused by the joltingly disorienting process of entering adolescence, grieving, navigating a plethora of feelings I didn't even know my heart was capable of feeling. Thinking I was broken, that a joyous teenage dream I could only ever imagine had already been crushed, that life itself wasn't worth living. Yet, I didn't understand this film, the emotions it was trying to express; perhaps I was too naive, lacking in maturity and worldly experience, lacking in an understanding of love and its complex nature. Whatever it may have been, I just didn't experience any sort of emotional response or catharsis. I shelved the DVD, hoping that one day I could revisit it and truly understand the messages being conveyed.
Fast forward to over two years later, and Her is now, without a shadow of a doubt, an utterly perfect piece of cinema in my eyes. Faultless, flawless, perfect. Joaquin Phoenix's stunning performance as a meditation on depression and loss in modern society, the wonderfully dynamic and thought-provoking screenplay from Jonze, the picturesque cinematography: it's all perfect.
Her is, ultimately, a film about longing to cultivate a genuine connection in the ever more isolating milieu of the 21st century. Told through the eyes of Theodore Twombly, an introverted, depressed and recently divorced man living in the ever-more disconnected, synthetic city of Los Angeles, the film follows Theodore as he begins to fall in love with Samantha, an artificially intelligent operating system with the ability to evolve and develop psychologically in juxtaposition to current operating systems, such as Amazon's Alexa. The film is also a semi-autobiographical meditation from director Spike Jonze on his divorce from director Sofia Coppola a decade before the film's release in 2013 (with a converse retelling of the deterioration of this same marriage coming from Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003)). While these two films explore different narratives and themes, both seem to stem from the same ideological seed: the difficulties faced in attempting to build true human connections in populous cities that seem to be becoming more and more immersed in modern technology as opposed to the "real", natural world. Despite Her's dystopian setting in a near future, during a pandemic that has closed the entire world down and isolated us all from each other, never have the overriding themes felt more pressing and current.
Cinematography
Firstly, one element of this film that is completely paramount to the overall storytelling is the cinematography (beautifully composed by director of photography Hoyte van Hoytema):
I could list every single frame of this film to fill up an entire book, and they would still all be equally beautiful.
The main standout point for me in terms of the cinematography is, despite the constant portrayals of often debilitating loneliness within the film, each shot harbours a sense of such warmth, presenting the future to be soulful and not completely devoid of genuine connection; Jonze subverts typical sci-fi conventions of illustrating technological advances to be callous and cold. Van Hoytema has specifically mentioned his desire to eliminate the colour blue in the cinematography in order to give a specific feel, and that mood has been successfully achieved and interwoven delicately through the entire narrative. An atmosphere of comfort, warmth, compassion, homeliness (despite the isolating grandeur of Los Angeles), connection. Really, that's what the entire film is centred upon and based around, connection. Even the perhaps terrifyingly endless skyline of the city takes on a tender persona, with glaring lights from skyscrapers blurring into smears across the portrait of a dusk-ridden sky, wrapping and encompassing Theodore into an all-consuming embrace of light. Yet, van Hoytema knows exactly how to subvert this amenity into apathy, as wide shots of Theodore (often lying on his bed) in his apartment feel disjunct, empty and existentially lonely: the future isn't as bright as it may initially appear to be.
The colour red is also interwoven constantly throughout the cinematography, on a more obvious level as symbolic of the developing love between Theodore and Samantha, but perhaps on a deeper level to suggest the mellowing of the anger and heartfelt passion between Theodore and his ex-wife/childhood sweetheart Catherine (both of these emotions are famously associated with red in works of literature and cinema). Right from the opening shot of the film (the 2nd shot listed above), Theodore is surrounded by the colour in an almost box-like fashion, and a red shirt is also a common costuming choice for our protagonist. All of these allusions to passionate lust suggest that perhaps Theodore is becoming asphyxiated by his clinging to these emotions long after they have deteriorated between him and Catherine, and even his attachment to and love for Samantha is becoming detrimental, as in the final act of the film he becomes so emotionally intertwined with this operating system that he is seemingly unable to function without her. However, in the final scene, as Theodore composes a mature and heartfelt email to Catherine, the mood begins to shift; Theodore wears a white shirt, connoting purity and suggesting that he has finally been cleansed from the lust, the passion, the clinging to these feelings that only tied him up in sorrow and melancholiness. As the sun rises on our protagonist with Amy, we as an audience are finally filled up with the hope of a dawn of a new chapter in Theodore's life, one in which he is not characterised by loneliness, but instead by mellowed feelings and memories of old love and affection that do not consume him, but instead allow him to grow emotionally as a person and begin to appreciate life without the need of being romantically attached to another.
Score
I simply would not be able to review this film without mentioning the stunning score composed by Arcade Fire. It has recently been released on Spotify for all to listen to and enjoy, and I think it's probably my favourite film score of all time. From the opening compositions of Milk and Honey, which feel as if a giant machine is sighing deeply and rocking your very soul, to later expressions of jubilant love such as Photograph (which creates an atmosphere of tumbling, falling clumsily but beautifully into love; falling head over heels in love with someone), the score is simply perfect. The entire spectrum of human emotions seems to be covered in a mere 40 minutes: joy, sorrow, anguish, heartbreak, giddiness, love, grief. It's purely beautiful and moving in a way that shakes the very foundations of the manner in which you view the world.
Connection
As I mentioned near the beginning of this post, Her is ultimately a film about finding and cultivating genuine human connection in the ever-more isolating and technologically-dependent society of the 21st century. Theodore exists in a world where everyone is so wrapped up in technology and creating their own facade of being connected to others (whether that be through calling or messaging others through the earpiece in which most residents of LA seem to have), that every person instead becomes more and more isolated and disconnected from reality. Strangely enough, that's exactly how this pandemic has felt. Being stuck in a single room for months without a clear end in sight, attempting to over-compensate for your alienation from society by making endless plans with loved ones for zoom quiz nights and late-night chats. Yet, absolutely nothing can compare to the feeling of being next to someone, feeling their heat, wrapping touch-starved arms around them. No matter how transcendent of social structures and stereotypes Theodore and Samantha's love appears to be, heartache was seemingly inevitable, as while Samantha can advance and grow into higher states of consciousness and intellect, Theodore is, and forever will be, tethered to a human body and mortality, separating the two in more ways than one.
However, isn't that what makes life so beautiful? Mortality, living every day in the knowledge that this existence will one day cease to exist, understanding that your days on this Earth are numbered. Isn't that what makes spending time with the people you love, creating memories that will live on long after you die, appreciating the little things that this often cruel life has to offer, so special? Even when it all seems hopeless, even when the world seems to be crumbling at your feet, it's those small and seemingly insignificant moments of connection that ultimately make life worth living. No matter how their marriages deteriorate, no matter how gut-wrenchingly painful departures from their loved ones may be, no matter what obstacles life throws at them, Theodore and Amy will always have each other. They will always have a loving and deeply human connection, an everlasting friendship that transcends any technological advances serving to isolate humanity by instead finding honesty, warmth and comfort in each other. Perhaps that was the message that Jonze was trying to portray all along: what is life without human connection?
The last time I saw this film, I didn’t know what it was like to miss someone through a screen, to long to be with someone, to hold them in your arms. Now it’s all that occupies my thoughts, and nothing has articulated that longing as well as Her. The longing to bridge that heart-aching gap of distance, to be near to someone and feel them next to you, to wrap them up in a warm embrace. That human connection is something that Theodore and Samantha could never have, but it's something that we all can. So as these restrictions (in the UK at least) begin to ease, and when you feel comfortable, hug your loved ones and tell them how much you love them. Because above all, above all materialistic wants, career worries and empty desires, it's the cultivation of relationships, the cultivation of friendships and the euphoria of falling in love that, for me, makes life worth living.
If you're reading this (you know who you are), I miss you, and I adore and love you always. I cannot wait for the day when I can hold you in my arms and tell you how much you mean to me in person.
Thank you Spike Jonze. Thank you for creating a masterpiece, I'm moved and longing for comfort more than ever before. Thank you.
(for anyone that loved Her as much as I did, I recommend Lost in Translation (2003) directed by Sofia Coppola).