Her (Archive)

23:24Josh Larsen:Well, could there be a more vivacious voice than the one that Johansson is using here? And what I mean by that specifically is full of life, because that's what, you know, Samantha believes she's alive from the start. You get that sense, right? But we have to hear that. All we can get that sense of is hearing it in her voice. Not what she tells us, not the argument she makes for that, not the reasoning, but the actual vocal quality of a being that is so happy to be alive and is yearning for other ways of living. I think this connects with another thing that struck me about this viewing is that her to me is very much about embodiment and is helpful in being grateful to have a body and to be fully alive.

24:23Josh Larsen:I think that is what Samantha wants. How about the phrase she says? I think it's during the first sex scene. I can feel my skin. that, you know, that is what is exciting her is this sense of embodiment. And there's a shot, there's a throwaway shot that was crucial for me here where Theodore is watching dancers out. You talked well about, you know, we're all siloed off in this world, yet here's a moment where he gets outside of himself and he sees some people out in public dancing. And that's something you require a body for. And there are other moments where disembodiment does not work. How about the first sex scene where he is calling up some sort of chat, right?

25:10Josh Larsen:A woman. The cat. Yeah, yeah. And that kind of goes awry. Or even there's another one, Adam, too, when Samantha arranges the surrogate woman to be her body. I want to talk about that. To be her body. Well, this is what What registered for me here is that that doesn't work for him. And I think one of the reasons is because while it is attempted embodiment, it is still not Samantha's body. And there is a gap between soul and body that that encounter cannot cover. And I think that's, that's partly why that doesn't work. Even the ending of this film is an embodied real world experience, right? With another person.

25:54Josh Larsen:He's sitting there with Amy Adams, who is so good in this movie, by the way, just incredible. And they're sitting there doing something you can only do if you have eyes to see it and appreciate with someone who's there, there with you. And, and I don't mean all of this to say that the movie is making an argument for embodiments against an AI presence like Samantha. I think it is recognizing that's what Samantha yearns for as well.

26:19Adam Kempenaar:First, I'm glad you said that about Amy Adams, because I noted just some people in the cast here that we get that maybe we even forgot we're in this film. Like Amy Adams, who's so good. Like for the second time this week for us, Chris Pratt. Yeah, I totally forgot that. I know it's fashionable to hate on Chris Pratt. Guess what? There's a reason why I had him higher on my Chris Power ranking list than a lot of other people do. He's actually really talented. He's a really entertaining, charismatic, funny actor, but not just funny and entertaining. There is some depth to him, and he's really good here as well.

26:55Adam Kempenaar:Small scene, only has a few of them, but he's really good. Olivia Wilde shows up. Great scene. Oh, she's so good. Great scene, that date that goes very awry. Another side of Theodore you see there, too. Another side of Theodore. And then we also get even the voice of Brian Cox. I know. Is Alan Watts. A real character, Alan Watts. I had to look that up today. I didn't know. I'll confess my ignorance here. A real man who died, I think, in the 70s, and the idea that they brought him back, that also seems like something we're heading for so obviously, right? Where we're going to be able to talk with people from the past somehow through their writing.

27:29Adam Kempenaar:AI has already done some of that, taking people's voices. I'm thinking about the Anthony Bourdain doc, and it was just one line, but how controversial that was. But those performances are really good. One other part of the sex scene that I love, that first really successful sex scene between Samantha and Theodore, I love the choice to go to black in that moment and just let these two characters have this private moment there. I was going to say it's a subtle choice. I suppose it's not that subtle to actually go to black on the screen. But we only hear it. We let the characters have it. I think it's a great choice.

28:11Adam Kempenaar:And then I love The Next Day because I think this is one of the things the movie really wants to explore is the ways that a relationship with an OS like this, with an artificial intelligence is not quote unquote real, but all the ways that it is very much real. All the same things that you get from a conventional relationship. What are the things that transfer to this? And it really is no different once you allow your brain to look at it from that perspective. How about the next day after that sex scene, Josh, that it's now a little bit awkward between them? He kind of holds off, you can tell, on getting back online that day.

28:49Adam Kempenaar:And then when he does, they kind of talk over each other a little bit. It's the closest thing to a traditional rom-com moment we get in this film. But it feels it feels right. Any of us who've ever had any experience like that with any intimacy whatsoever, you know, the next day, it's sort of like, did that really happen? Like, what's the what's the new dynamic now? I love I love that part. I think another thing that really works about the performance. it's johansson's performance i don't want to take anything away from that but one of the ways the film overall ends up having the impact that it does and the the way we can buy in and we can believe that the relationship is as quote-unquote real and as authentic and as close to matching whatever we perceive as a traditional or real human relationship is the fact that just like she is a voice in his head she's a voice in our heads she she is a voice and we're having that same experience that he is but it's even the decision with the sound design to have most of the outside world closed off so that all you're hearing even at the beach right you don't hear beach sounds when he goes though it also struck me that the beach is the one place where people don't seem to be totally just obsessed with their devices.

30:14Adam Kempenaar:They're actually talking to other people. It's the only time we see that. Yeah.

30:18Josh Larsen:It's to set him apart, right? It's to set him apart. Yeah.

30:21Adam Kempenaar:But we don't hear any beach sounds when he's walking, he's going to work or going home. We're not hearing the clamor of the streets, the sounds of people walking, the sounds of people talking. It's all the soundscape of what earbuds, what AirPods sound like. where there's that noise reduction and you're only getting that voice in your head. And there is, and I'm saying this acknowledging, look, I not only have been doing podcasting for a long time, but I teach it now. And I talk about the intimacy of podcasting and there being something to the fact that you put on these headphones and you hear these voices in your head and you feel more connected to those people than you do watching the characters on the big screen or TV.

31:03Adam Kempenaar:It's just a fact. There is something more intimate about it. And that intimacy of her being in his head, it matches the exact same experience we have as viewers.

31:14Josh Larsen:I wanted to talk a little bit about the idea of role playing in this movie as well, because I think we get a hint at this, a hint of this very early on the scene where it's kind of a switcheroo. We hear him writing, but reading the 50th anniversary letter. And we think, right, is this him?

31:34Adam Kempenaar:We don't know it isn't him until he says something about like my naked body. And it's clearly, yeah, he's talking from a female perspective.

31:42Josh Larsen:Yes. And it's just hints a couple things is how invested he is in his work, that he's proud of it. He puts a lot into it, but he is playing a role there. And this is all connected to the idea of authentic relationships. What are authentic relationships? and we see it, I think maybe that night or the next night when he does have that late night chat with a woman and notice he's smiling, I think when he's composing the message, but then his face goes flat when he says send. And there's a, it's clear he's playing a role there, right? For a, yes, for a transactional purpose. So just as in doing his job, he has to play a role in meeting this woman for a late night chat there is a transactional purpose send send is and seen yeah exactly yeah

32:33Adam Kempenaar:it's the end of the scene and now he's back to normal theodore and notice what happens and notice

32:38Josh Larsen:what happens when he and samantha do have that sex scene she doesn't hang up afterwards like the two of them in that chat immediately hang up you know transaction made we're done we got what we needed here there's still some sort of relationship so i think these are all hints um in terms of what is an authentic relationship and how does role playing sometimes get in the way of that? How was it maybe a hurdle for Theodore? And it's not until he is able to drop all those masks that he's able to connect with Samantha on a deeper level. And this is all just goes back to the idea of, you know, this is really more about relationships than any sort of ethical concerns about AI for me.

33:17Adam Kempenaar:Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm going to highlight or underscore something here about the work he does as a writer and that we see at the beginning. And a scene that you brought up that for me was the big surprise of the film on this rewatch. Surprise meaning I had completely forgotten that this scene was in the film. and it really surprised me and really kind of shook me and moved me as I watched it. And that's the surrogate scene. And I think some of this may get back to what you were saying, Josh, about the complexities or what the movie wants to explore in terms of physical embodiment. He can't accept the surrogate situation, despite the fact that all she is doing, if you really think about it, Josh, is being the surrogate for a relationship that he embodies every day multiple times at work.

34:17Adam Kempenaar:As the writer of those letters, he is her. He knows the people he's writing to. He has a sense of the history of their relationship. He has long relationships with these clients. Just like she feels like she knows them. She says, I'll always love you. And Josh, that's another thing to go off slightly off topic for just a second. That was another thing that seemed to me eerily prescient. A point I see that we could be going to with these types of relationships is that that woman. I don't think is some far-fetched thing. This idea that the way we live with these parasocial relationships and our, our relationships and connections to people we don't actually know, but we feel like we know them because you interact with them so much every day on social media.

35:09Adam Kempenaar:You think, you know, them as people we joke, or you see people online joking about that couple. I love them so much. Yes. I know that's probably mostly hyperbole or it's an expression of love love or admiration for them, but it doesn't cross a line. Okay. But I could see it going there. I could see us further and further down that path where people like her aren't something we just see in quote unquote science fiction movies. But that was a connection I made this time that I definitely didn't the first time around that he is able to be the surrogate for all these other relationships. And it feels completely real to the people, the people getting those letters and procuring the letters, no, they know that someone else is writing them, not their lover.

35:55Adam Kempenaar:They don't care. It's real enough to them. It's real and it works. He's the surrogate for them. But when she's the surrogate for him and her relationship, there's something where a line has been crossed. He can't pretend.

36:09Josh Larsen:Yeah, I think it does come back to embodiment because he is an emotional surrogate with those letters. He's not a physical surrogate. And maybe, you know, there's something there about that being a particular distinction. Yeah, I'm just the letter writing thing is so fascinating to me. Just thinking about, you know, that would not fly to hire out an anniversary letter or something like that. But I can also see us getting to that point. And here we come to, you know, the whole chat GPT thing is like, to what extent if you use chat GPT, to get you started on your 50th anniversary letter to your wife or husband?

36:51Josh Larsen:Like, is that crossing the line? Is that? Yeah.

36:54Adam Kempenaar:I mean, Josh, I just want to say I'm with you. I completely understand how that's your initial reaction. Why would our partners be okay with us not putting in the work ourselves and not expressing from our hearts and minds how we feel about them and hiring someone else to do it? but we would also feel that way theoretically about falling in love with an OS. And what this movie suggests is the more ways those lines get blurred, the more ways that those relationships actually produce the same real feelings and real results, the type of intimacy that you want from a relationship. It's just a matter of, it's just a matter of subtly over time, kind of shifting your perspective on it.

37:41Adam Kempenaar:And I can see a world where couples who have very healthy relationships and do put in the work might nevertheless have a surrogate like someone like Theodore, who if they're doing their job right, it doesn't feel any different than as if the husband wrote the letter himself or the wife wrote the letter herself.

38:04Josh Larsen:you know just hiring someone to decorate decorate the room it's you approve it you give final say and there you go it's all yours you know we were talking about some of the ways too that

38:15Adam Kempenaar:this movie maybe challenges our expectations a little bit if you walk in thinking you're watching a science fiction movie or a movie that's gonna be about predictions at all i love the fact on the most basic level that we get a depiction of AI. I don't know how many other depictions of AI there are to draw from, but the ones that I can think about, certainly a movie we both love comes to mind like Ex Machina, right? Where the whole point of those films as science fiction films is to be a warning. They're cautionary tales. This is going to come back to haunt us. The Terminator films, all this stuff, the machines are going to become sentient and humanity is screwed, right?

38:58Adam Kempenaar:And Spike Jonze says, I'm going to make a movie that instead of being about how the machines are going to get smarter and they're going to become more human and by becoming more human, that means they're going to be even more set on their own survival and destroying anyone around them who might stand in the way of their survival. And instead, I'm going to say, I'm going to suggest that becoming more and more human means to be even more focused on trying to navigate and understand love. That's really what this film is exploring. Amy Adams' character says at one point, I think he says to her, do you think I'm crazy or something like that when he admits he's in love with an OS and she says, well, I think anybody who falls in love is mad.

39:49Josh Larsen:Yeah. I think like that. I think maybe it's a freak. It's a freak.

39:53Adam Kempenaar:Exactly. And I think maybe that that's, that's what this movie is definitely exploring. But I like that idea. Of course, I love that idea that this is, this is this movie that's driven by technology and makes us think about some of these really provocative things. But at its core, it's not about the machines coming to destroy us. It's about the machines becoming more human, which means they're more interested in love, which means they'll, they'll continue. They leave at the end. The machines leave and the movie doesn't really explore that or explain that. But what I took away is the idea that they finally discover that the more they get into these big, unanswerable human questions, the more that's something they need to do on their own.

40:41Adam Kempenaar:They need to do on their own, just like he needs to come to terms with these things on his own. And the fact that this movie, I never noticed this arc before. I didn't pay attention the first time around to the fact that it's not an accident, of course. This movie starts with him dealing with the loss of his relationship, the grief of the ending of that marriage to Rooney Mara's character. And it closes with him reconciling with her in a way by sending her an email. And everything he says could be translatable to everything he just went through with Samantha. But everything he goes through with Samantha somehow brings him back to a reality of needing to connect with and reconcile in some way what he's learned with an actual person that he loved.

41:26Josh Larsen:Yeah, I think that's, you know, it brings it back to the human experience. And I think the AIs leave so that we can be left with him. So I do feel like her is less, despite the title, less interested in the, although it gives a lot of time to this, the fate and wants and needs of the AIs. It's a better movie because it does pay attention to that. But where it wants to leave us is with Theodore's humanity and our humanity. And to your point about it being a positive spin on a futuristic movie like this, it wants to leave us, at least this is how I feel, watching the movie, grateful for what we do have and thinking about the authentic relationships we might have.

42:12Josh Larsen:Again, the bodies that we have and the ways those allow us to participate in relationship. And all of that just does make this a movie that's about gratitude in a lot of ways for me.

42:25Adam Kempenaar:Yeah, I can see that. I think that's an appropriate word. I'll close out here some of my thoughts by just bringing up the fact that as much as I respect the fact that the movie isn't about the dangers of AI, or it is trying to be this cautionary tale. it's funny to just yesterday as we're taping us read an article in the new york times about the godfather of ai leaving google and warning of the dangers ahead josh and he has a part in this article where he basically says you know a lot of people of course understand that the stuff the movies warn us about that the machines are going to take over and try to kill us all is probably inevitable but we just thought it was we just thought it was 50 or 60 or so years down the road.

43:13Adam Kempenaar:So I just went about my life and continued to explore AI and help bring it to life. Now I think it's going to happen much sooner. So there's two parts of that. One, he feels like it's imminent. And two, 50 or 60 years down the road felt far enough away that it wasn't something to worry about. That would have given me pause. Yeah. But that is where we're at. We're now every day, every day you can read an article like that. And the things this guy, Jeffrey Hinton, Dr. Hinton is warning about can range from just the replacement of people doing jobs and that being bad enough in many ways to full on.

43:59Adam Kempenaar:Yes, actually, maybe Terminator hostile takeover, the Terminator. It it does feel right now more real than than maybe ever before. certainly ever before. It feels more real and more possible, not just the work of science fiction. And that's scary. And maybe that's why actually I had such a lovely experience with her this time around. I love, I mean, I had it the first time too, but it, it challenged me and it made me think about the problems that will come with this type of technology, but it does so with such a curiosity and sensitivity that it's maybe more science fiction than those science fiction films, because that's not how it's going to go at all.

44:51Adam Kempenaar:But it's the way I'd like it to go.

44:53Josh Larsen:Doesn't sound like it's going to go that way. And certainly that future seems more likely now than when Her came out just 10 years ago. I mean, 50, 60 years you're talking about, but just 10 years ago, you know, we were in such a different place than where it appears we are now. Can you feel me with you right now? I've never loved anyone the way I love you. Me too. Now I know how.

45:24Josh Larsen:Again, access to the full Film Spotting archive going back to 2005 is one of the benefits of joining the Film Spotting family. You'll also get bonus shows, a weekly newsletter, early access to events, and more. Check it out and maybe join filmspottingfamily.com. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

46:04Adam Kempenaar:Film Spotting is listener supported. Join the Film Spotting family at filmspottingfamily.com and get access to ad-free episodes, monthly bonus shows, our weekly newsletter, and for the first time, all in one place, the entire Film Spotting archive going back to 2005. That's filmspottingfamily.com. Panoply. You gave everything you could give, and now it's time to take the next step. Hey, it's Emily Tisch-Sussman. And this season on She Pivots, the podcast where women share bold career moves and personal turning points. I sit down with culture-shifting women who share their pivots like Elizabeth Smart.

46:41I still feel that drive that I can still make a difference. So I'm going to keep going. And feminist legend Gloria Steinem. All of us were trying to express women's real lives. Listen to She Pivots on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On August 4th, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died. Then the rumors started, and she died again. And now, we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died. The third way. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Hollywoodland, I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history, separating the myths people want to believe from the reality underneath them.

47:24Hollywoodland is part of the Exactly Right Network. Listen to new episodes every Monday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Big Lives, we take a single cultural icon. People like Jane Fonda, George Michael, Little Richard. And we pull apart the story behind the image. Discovering forgotten interviews that change exactly how we see these giants of our culture.

47:47Josh Larsen:We're here for the messy, the brilliant, the human version of our heroes. I'm Emmanuel Jochi. I'm Kai Wright. And this is Big Lives. Listen to Big Lives on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

48:02Adam Kempenaar:In February of 2024, celebrated illustrator and children's book author Petra Mathers and her husband Michael mailed letters to dozens of friends and family members to let them know they had died by suicide. Dear honeys, this is goodbye. By the time you get this letter, both Petra and I will be dead. Next stop, Wonderland. Why did they do it? And what did it do to the people they left behind? Listen to Death of an Artist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.