![]() Samantha’s revelation that she has been seeing other people is perfectly meshed with Theodore literally hitting rock bottom by crouching on the subway steps as hordes of people shove around him. Then it plummets as Theodore trips, mesmerizingly calling the strangers around him into action trying to wake them up from their immersive technology. As Theodore goes down the elevator the camera slides with him and your heart pounds. The scene creates a distressed, tense mood with the throbbing disconnected signal playing in the background which is supplemented by an ominous score. It works to quell the anxiety, frustration and anger drummed up in the presiding climactic scene in which Theodore becomes disconnected from Samantha. The final scene sets a reflective, tranquil tone for the movie. They come from two different worlds, a la Romeo and Juliet, but the ending of Her feels more like the conclusion of Lost in Translation than Shakespeare’s tragedy, because Theodore and Samantha appear to have moved on contentedly in better directions. Their romance becomes perfectly bittersweet and fully explored they have had wonderful adventures and changed each other, but because of that they can no longer be together. ![]() Towards the end of the movie we come to know the rapidity with which Sam has been changing- how she has fallen in love with 600 people and often carries on thousands of conversations at a time. This foreshadows the eventual end of Theodore and Sam’s relationship when Theodore seems to have changed by understanding the value of human interaction through observing his coworker Paul (Chris Pratt) and his girlfriend, spending time with his friend Amy (Amy Adams), and discerning the limits and peculiarity of a future with Sam. Interestingly, Theodore says that he and his ex-wife grew up with each other and then grew apart. He can also visually show her his environment with a hand-held phone-like device, which allows them to bond while people watching, and provokes Sam’s creativity and gives her glimpses into other people’s lives. Sam constantly adapts and alters her personality and understanding of the world after spending time with Theodore everything he says helps her to learn and evolve. They invoke change in each other, especially emotionally, which Theodore sees as a positive development. Furthermore, she inspires him to spend more time with his friends and coworkers and to have a sunnier disposition. When Samantha enters his life, she provides Theodore with comfort and companionship. Theodore tends to live vicariously through the people whose letters he writes and the characters he inhabits in video games, and rejects human interaction by not spending time with his friends or getting to know potential partners. However, the movie does not make a clear judgment on the value or legitimacy of a relationship between a human and an operating system. When he is in these spaces, the camera shots often feel jarring, and he is usually with Samantha, making their relationship seem less natural. When he is lounging on the beach it is overpopulated and the scenes where he is in the woods feel overwhelming because of the endless whiteness of the landscape. This creates the mood that Theodore’s environment is not compatible with him or Samantha, because they are both, in different ways, products of this future world. Theodore’s world is painted in warm pastels and cool greys, which are always too synthetic to feel normal. The temporal and spatial place Theodore lives in works to reflect his relationship with Samantha. ![]() Phoenix perfectly inhabits a man who has lost his sense of joy and purpose in the world and who subtly becomes more enamored with life as he finds love in Samantha. Her is much less a movie about the future - though it ruminates on what our lives will look like in the time ahead - than it is a commentary on the way humans interact with each other. The directors of the two films, former husband and wife Spike Jonze ( Her) and Sofia Coppola ( Lost in Translation), focus upon inter-personal relationships, loneliness, and communication issues in their respective movies. Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) forms a relationship with an operating system named Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), just as Johansson was a companion to Bill Murray’s misanthropic character in Translation. Her is Lost in Translation’s futuristic cousin that likewise has deep resonations for today’s world.
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