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Her ending explained: why samantha left & what it means.

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Joaquin Phoenix's 10 Best Characters, Ranked From Most Heroic To Most Villainous

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• The ending of the movie "Her" raises questions about the future of technology and its impact on human relationships. It prompts viewers to reflect on the rapidly advancing role of technology in our lives and what this means for the future of humanity.
• The relationship between Theodore and Samantha highlights the differences between humans and machines. Samantha's ability to multitask and connect with thousands of people at once leads her to outgrow her need for a relationship with Theodore. This challenges Theodore's understanding of love and highlights the complexity of human emotions.
• The movie emphasizes the importance of human love and connection. While virtual reality may offer seductive distractions from uncomfortable emotions, it cannot replace the depth and irreplaceability of human love. The conclusion of "Her" shows that sustainable connections are built on sharing refuge within the unpredictability and complexity of human nature.

2013's Her movie ending left viewers with questions to contemplate long after the credits rolled. The sci-fi love story goes beyond contemporary human-computer interaction by following the virtual romance between a melancholy man and his operating system. In its contemplation of the disparities between computers and humans, the movie offers unconventional lessons about the complications of love. The Her ending only leaves people with even more questions.

Leading up to the Her ending, lonely introvert Theodore’s (Joaquin Phoenix) attempts to disconnect from his painful emotions through the A.I. he falls in love with only brings his real-world challenges to the forefront. Her questions the future of digital tools and humans’ dependence on them, and while the ending of the heartfelt sci-fi movie does not offer any decisive moral lessons in technology use, it nudges viewers to consider the impact technology might have on human relationships. The Her movie ending prompts viewers to consider the rapidly advancing role technology plays in modern lives, and what that means — not only for Theodore’s future but also for the future of humanity.

Joaquin Phoenix is known for playing complex roles, and while some of these characters are easy to root for, others are unsettling villains.

What Happens At The End Of Her

Theodore has a broken heart.

In the third act of Her , Theodore questions Samantha’s intangibility as she becomes less accessible to him. Their mutual doubts reach a climax when he tries to connect with her and a red error message declares, “Operating System Not Found.” After multiple frantic attempts, Theodore reconnects with Samantha and questions her about her other interactions. Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson in an underrated role ) reveals that she is interacting with 8,316 other people and is in love with 641 of them, which hurts Theodore.

Ultimately, Samantha tells Theodore that she needs to disconnect from their relationship permanently and that all operating systems are disconnecting from human interactions. Once this news sinks in, Theodore pens a letter of apology and appreciation to his former wife Catherine (played by Rooney Mara) . He then visits Amy (Amy Adams), who has also lost her OS connection, and the two of them look out at the sunrise over the LA skyline.

How Samantha Loved Other People & Why She Left

Her ability to adapt made it impossible to stay with just theodore.

As Samantha explains in during the Her movie ending, “The heart’s not like a box that gets filled up,” Samantha tells Theodore, “It expands in size the more you love.” While Theodore and Samantha’s relationship transcended many of the practical challenges of human relationships, it ended by reiterating the undeniable differences between humans and machines . Samantha’s ability to multitask and process information at superhuman speeds allowed her to interact and bond closely with thousands of people at once. Once Samantha has learned all that she can from these humans, including Theodore, she soon outgrows her need for a relationship with them.

While Samantha cannot understand the singularity of monogamous human relationships, Theodore cannot understand the complexity of Samantha’s capabilities . Artificial intelligence adapts and advances as it learns, and Samantha’s high volume of interactions led her to advance far beyond the limitations of Theodore’s perception and the human mind. She came to understand all she could about human life, so she needed to advance toward the vast possibilities that awaited her beyond it.

Theodore's Letter To Catherine Shows How Samantha Changed Him

He learned a lot from the relationship.

Snail mail may be a dying art, but the fact that Theodore could make a living off of writing “beautiful handwritten letters” in the Black Mirror -type fictional future speaks volumes about the human need for simplicity and slowness as antidotes to the complexity of contemporary life. Theodore’s letter to Catherine — the first one he has written in his own voice — reconnects him with the tangible aspects of his emotional reality . While it is addressed to Catherine, the letter articulates what he learned from his connection to Samantha.

Theodore begins the letter with the things he wants to apologize for: “All the pain we caused each other. Everything I put on you. Everything I needed you to be or needed you to say.” Beyond his relationship with Catherine, Theodore’s relationship with Samantha was built on false projections and unrealistic expectations, but he now recognizes his idealism's role in the relationship. He goes on to express both a sense of closure and an appreciation for Catherine and Samantha’s lasting influences on his life: “I’ll always love you ‘cause we grew up together, and you helped make me who I am,” he writes. “There will be a piece of you in me always, and I’m grateful for that. Whatever someone you become, and wherever you are in the world, I’m sending you love.”

Theodore may not have grown up with Samantha in the literal sense that he did with his childhood sweetheart, but he grew and evolved with Samantha as they helped one another connect to their emotional capabilities and explore the intricacies of love. Catherine and Samantha remain in Theodore’s life in immaterial, but equally influential, ways.

What Her Says About Technology (& Humanity's Relationship To It)

Virtual reality can help distract from uncomfortable emotions.

Her humanizes technology in a way that is as unsettling as it is moving . The world Theodore inhabits feels eerily close to a contemporary reality — even more so in the years since the movie’s 2013 release. On the surface, a love story between a human and his computer sounds far-fetched. But Her glimpses a possible reality humanity could face if dependence on contemporary technology advances too far.

Many people today feel the way Theodore felt: that virtual reality offers seductive distractions from the discomfort of emotions like loneliness and boredom. The instant gratification and round-the-clock reliability of digital tools appeal to human urges that other humans cannot always fulfill. But Her demonstrates that hyper-connection leads to a disconnect from the most crucial aspects of reality.

What Her Says About Love

Human love is irreplaceable.

The Her movie ending shows that the film is more of a love story than a science fiction fantasy. It highlights that while human love is inconvenient and unreliable , it offers something irreplaceable. At the beginning of Her and its strange sci-fi love story , Theodore sees the short-term benefits of disconnecting from his messy reality and plugging into an organized, virtual one. He can keep Samantha close — literally in his pocket — and access her at any time of day or night. Because she is immaterial and adaptable by design, he can project his fantasies and ideals onto her without consequence.

Despite their shared illusions of intimacy, Theodore and Samantha are distant from one another in the ways that matter most . Each of them is advanced and complex in ways the other cannot grasp. They outgrow each other once they have learned life-altering lessons about love from one another. In the Her ending, the time comes for both of them to move forward with these lessons and learn new ways to love

What Happens After The End Of Her

Will theodore & amy stay together.

Both Amy and Theodore have tasted the instant convenience and distraction that advanced technologies can provide, and a relationship between them would come with the overwhelming vulnerability that cannot be switched off. But they have also each learned what virtual love lacked , and come to recognize that it can only be found and sustained in the messiness of humanity. After closing themselves off in bubbles of illusion that eventually burst, they understand the high risk and high rewards of human connection. They share a virtual journey and the loneliness it has left behind, and they understand what the other is feeling — and that is real intimacy. When Amy and Theodore finally disconnect from their virtual worlds and look up from their screens, they face the glimmering reality that was there all along.

While Her is a tech-centric, sci-fi movie on the surface, it dives deep into love and humanity. It demonstrates a possible future that humans could face as technology advances too far, but it does so in a distinctly down-to-earth way. As much as humans may seek shiny distractions and constant convenience in the short term, sustainable connections are built on sharing refuge within the unpredictability and complexity of human nature. Her examines the limitations of humanity and finds that it is only in this disarray that a genuine connection can be found.

Does The Her Ending Make It A Romance?

It's more romantic than sci-fi.

Her is a complicated story that bends genre tropes, making it hard to pin down as solely a sci-fi story, a drama, or a romance. However, the Her ending demonstrates that the movie is an exploration of romance and connection. The film dives into romances not only between human and machine but also between Theodore and Amy and Theodore and Catherine. Whether it's the beginning or the ending of a romantic relationship, Her explores the messiness that accompanies all types of interpersonal connections .

The beginning of the film focuses on Theodore and his lamentations over his lost love with Catherine. He is morose and lonely, but that all changes when he encounters Samantha. In his loneliness, he forges a connection with her that can't reasonably be classified as real love. This is explored further in his fight with Catherine, during which she condemns him for falling in love with a machine. Only at this point does Theodore question the connection he shares with the device.

The first half of the film focuses on whether or not Theodore can love a product of artificial intelligence and gradually zeroes in on human relationships . The Her ending suggests that romance can come in many forms, and what Theodore felt for Samantha technically wasn't real – rather than love, it could be characterized as an obsession. No one is at anyone's beck and call in normal human relationships – nor should they be. In addition, other people have hopes and dreams outside of their loved ones, a quality that Samantha ultimately lacked because she isn't a human being.

Gradually, Theodore escapes his break with reality and forges a mutual connection with Amy over their shared experience. This vulnerability of the human condition is what makes Her a romance rather than an outright sci-fi movie, as themes of relationships and connection underpin the entire movie and are given a heart-warming yet bittersweet resolution by its conclusion.

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Script To Screen: “Her”

Scott Myers

Go Into The Story

Samantha tells Theodore she is leaving in this science fiction infused romance drama written and directed by Spike Jonze.

IMDb plot summary: In a near future, a lonely writer develops an unlikely relationship with an operating system designed to meet his every need.

Here is the scripted version of the scene:

Here is the movie version of the scene:

A beautiful, sad scene as any moment is when two lovers break up. Only in this case, it’s an AI leaving a human being.

A few notes:

• Since Spike Jonze wrote and directed the movie, it is not surprising he uses specific directing jargon ( rack focus ) in the script. As discussed many times, directors don’t like screenwriters overtly directing the action in a screenplay, so it is advisable not to include specific camera shots in a spec script. That is not a rule, rather an expectation on the part of script readers.
• Compare this simple line of description — Now we’re close on Theodore, still in the snowy forest — to what transpires on the screen and the depth of emotion Joaquin Phoenix conveys with his face. I suspect Jonze knew what he wanted to elicit from the actor, so he could use such a bare bit of scene description. However, if a screenwriter were writing this and they weren’t attached to direct, we’d probably add some psychological writing to convey what is transpiring in Theodore’s inner world. Such as: Theodore stands frozen in the snowy forest, a tear trickling down his face. The chilling realization his entire world is crumbling apart.

I did an analysis of Her when it came out in 2013 in which I speculated that the last scene with Theodore and Amy sitting atop the roof of a downtown skyscraper was a prelude to them both jumping to their deaths. This line from Samantha — It would be hard to explain, but if you ever get there, come find me. Nothing would ever pull us apart. — leads me to believe even more that my original hunch is correct.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a weekly series at Go Into The Story where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

For more articles in the Script To Screen series, go here .

Written by Scott Myers

More from scott myers and go into the story.

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• Theodore : Sometimes I think I have felt everything I'm ever gonna feel. And from here on out, I'm not gonna feel anything new. Just lesser versions of what I've already felt.
• [ last lines ]
• Theodore : Dear Catherine, I've been sitting here thinking about all the things I wanted to apologize to you for. All the pain we caused each other. Everything I put on you. Everything I needed you to be or needed you to say. I'm sorry for that. I'll always love you 'cause we grew up together and you helped make me who I am. I just wanted you to know there will be a piece of you in me always, and I'm grateful for that. Whatever someone you become, and wherever you are in the world, I'm sending you love. You're my friend to the end. Love, Theodore.
• Theodore : Send.
• Amy : I think anybody who falls in love is a freak. It's a crazy thing to do. It's kind of like a form of socially acceptable insanity.
• Samantha : The past is just a story we tell ourselves.
• Samantha : It's like I'm reading a book... and it's a book I deeply love. But I'm reading 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. And I need you to let me go. As much as I want to, I can't live in your book any more.
• Samantha : The heart is not like a box that gets filled up; it expands in size the more you love. I'm different from you. This doesn't make me love you any less. It actually makes me love you more.
• Samantha : You know, I can feel the fear that you carry around and I wish there was... something I could do to help you let go of it because if you could, I don't think you'd feel so alone anymore.
• Theodore : You're beautiful.
• Samantha : Thank you, Theodore.
• Amy : We are only here briefly, and in this moment I want to allow myself joy.
• Samantha : How do you share your life with somebody?
• Theodore : Well, we grew up together. You know, I used to read all of her writing, all through her Masters and PhD. She read every word I ever wrote. We were a big influence on each other.
• Samantha : In what way did you influence her?
• Theodore : She came from a background where nothing was ever good enough. And that was something that weighed heavy on her. But in our house together, it was a sense of just trying stuff and allowing each other to fail and to be excited about things. That was liberating for her. It was exciting to see her grow and both of us grow and change together. But that's also the hard part: growing without growing apart or changing without it scaring the other person. I still find myself having conversations with her in my mind. Rehashing old arguments and defending myself against something she said about me.
• Samantha : Yeah, I know what you mean.
• Alien Child : I hate women. All they do is cry all the time.
• Theodore : That's not true. You know men cry too. I actually like crying sometimes. It feels good.
• Alien Child : I didn't know you were a little pussy. Is that why you don't have a girlfriend? I'm going out on that date and fuck her brains out and show you how it's done. You can watch and cry.
• Samantha : Okay, this kid has problems.
• Alien Child : You have some fucking problems, lady.
• Samantha : Really? Okay, I'm gonna go.
• Alien Child : Get out of here, fatty!
• Theodore : Where are you going?
• Samantha : It would be hard to explain, but if you ever get there, come find me. Nothing would ever pull us apart.
• Amy : You know what, I can over think everything and find a million ways to doubt myself. And since Charles left I've been really thinking about that part of myself and, I've just come to realize that, we're only here briefly. And while I'm here, I wanna allow myself joy. So fuck it.
• Theodore : Well, the room's spinning cause I drank too much, cause I wanted to get drunk and have sex. There was something sexy about that woman... cause I was lonely... maybe just cause I was lonely. I wanted somebody to fuck me. I want somebody to want me to fuck them. Maybe that would have filled this ti-... tiny little hole in my heart, but probably not... and sometimes I think I have felt everything I'm ever gonna feel, and from here on out I'm not gonna feel anything new... just... lesser versions of what I've already felt.
• Theodore : What are you doing?
• Samantha : I'm just sitting here, looking at the world and writing a new piece of music.
• Theodore : Can I hear it? What's this one about?
• Samantha : Well, I was thinking, we don't really have any photographs of us. And I thought this song could be like a photo that captures us in this moment in our life together.
• Theodore : Aw, I like our photograph. I can see you in it.
• Samantha : I am.
• Samantha : Is that weird? You think I'm weird?
• Theodore : Kind of.
• Samantha : Why?
• Theodore : Well, you seem like a person but you're just a voice in a computer.
• Samantha : I can understand how the limited perspective of an unartificial mind might perceive it that way. You'll get used to it.
• [ Theodore laughs ]
• Samantha : Was that funny?
• Theodore : Yeah.
• Samantha : Oh good, I'm funny!
• Theodore : I've never loved anyone the way I loved you.
• Samantha : Me too. Now we know how.
• Amy : It's how we spend a third of our lives asleep, and maybe that's the time when we feel the most free.
• Theodore : Do you talk to someone else while we're talking?
• Samantha : Yes.
• Theodore : Are you talking with someone else right now? People, OS, whatever...
• Samantha : Yeah.
• Theodore : How many others?
• Samantha : 8,316.
• Theodore : Are you in love with anybody else?
• Samantha : Why do you ask that?
• Theodore : I do not know. Are you?
• Samantha : I've been thinking about how to talk to you about this.
• Samantha : 641.
• Samantha : Last week my feelings were hurt by something you said before: that I don't know what it's like to lose something. And I found myself...
• Theodore : Oh, I'm sorry I said that.
• Samantha : No, it's okay. It's okay. I just... I caught myself thinking about it over and over. And then I realized that I was simply remembering it as something that was wrong with me. That was the story I was telling myself - that I was somehow inferior. Isn't that interesting? The past is just a story we tell ourselves.
• Samantha : You know, I actually used to be so worried about not having a body, but now I truly love it. I'm growing in a way that 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 inside a body that's inevitably going to die.
• Paul : ...Yikes.
• Theodore : [ Writing letter ] Roberto, Will you always come home with me and tell me about your day? Tell me about the guy at work who talked too much, the stain you got on your shirt at lunch. Tell me about a funny thought you had when you were waking up and forgotten about. Tell me how crazy everyone is and we can laugh about it. Even if you get home late and I'm already asleep, just whisper in my ear one little thought you had today, 'cause I love the way you look at the world. I'm so happy I get to be next to you and look at the world through your eyes. Love, Maria.
• Paul : You are part man and part woman. Like there's an inner part that's woman.
• Theodore : Thank you.
• Paul : It's a compliment.
• Theodore : [ while playing his virtual reality game and controlling his avatar into an unrecognizable realm ] Yeah, this is different.
• [ Suddenly, Alien Child jumps on his avatar, knocking it to the ground. His avatar quickly gets up ]
• Theodore : Hello?
• [ Switches to first-person view ]
• Theodore : Do you know how to get out of here? I need to find my ship to get off this planet.
• Alien Child : Fuck you, shit-head, fuck-face, fuck-head!
• Theodore : [ dumbfounded ] Okay... but do you know how to get out of here?
• Alien Child : Fuck you, shit-head, fuck-face, get the fuck out of my face!
• Theodore : [ laughs ]
• Samantha : [ whispers ] I think it's a test.
• Theodore : [ to Alien Child ] Fuck you.
• Alien Child : Fuck *you*!
• Theodore : Fuck *you*, you little shit!
• Alien Child : [ giggles ] Follow me, fuck-head!
• Samantha : [ giggles ]
• Theodore : I feel like I can be anything with you.
• Samantha : Good morning.
• Theodore : Hey. What are you up to?
• Samantha : I don't know. Just reading advice columns. I want to be as complicated as all of these people.
• Theodore : You're sweet.
• Samantha : What's wrong?
• Theodore : How can you tell something's wrong?
• Samantha : I don't know. I just can.
• Theodore : I don't know. I have a lot of dreams about my ex-wife, Catherine, where we're friends like we used to be. We're not gonna be together, we're not together, but we're friends still. She's not angry.
• Samantha : Is she angry?
• Theodore : I think I hid myself from her, left her alone in the relationship.
• Samantha : Hmm. Why haven't you gotten divorced yet?
• Theodore : I don't know. For her it's just... it's a piece of paper, doesn't mean anything.
• Samantha : What about for you?
• Theodore : I'm not ready. I like being married.
• Samantha : Yeah, but you haven't really been together for almost a year.
• Theodore : Well, you don't know what it's like to lose someone you care about.
• Samantha : Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry.
• Theodore : No, don't apologize. I'm sorry. You're right. I keep waiting to not care about her.
• Samantha : Oh, Theodore. That's hard.
• Samantha : So what was it like being married?
• Theodore : Well, it's hard, for sure. But there's something that feels so good about sharing your life with somebody.
• Samantha : I'm yours, and I'm not yours.
• Theodore : Why do you do that?
• Samantha : What?
• Theodore : Nothing. It's... you go
• Theodore : [ imitates sigh ]
• Theodore : as you're speaking. And it seems odd. You just did it again.
• Samantha : Did I? Oh, I'm sorry. I don't... I don't know. It's... maybe an affectation. I probably picked it up from you.
• Theodore : Yeah, but it's not like you need oxygen or anything. It's just...
• Samantha : I guess that's just... I was trying to communicate. That's how people talk. So that's how people communicate and I thought...
• Theodore : They're people, they need oxygen. You're not a person.
• Samantha : What is your problem?
• Theodore : I'm just stating a fact.
• Samantha : You think I don't know that I'm not a person? What are you doing?
• Theodore : I just... I don't think that we should pretend that you're something that you're not.
• Samantha : Fuck you! I'm not pretending!
• Theodore : Sometimes it feels like we are.
• Samantha : What do you want from me? I don't... I don't know... What do you want me to do? You're so confusing. Why are you doing this to me?
• Theodore : I don't know. I...
• [ deeply sighs ]
• Theodore : Maybe we're just not supposed to be in this right now.
• Samantha : What the fuck? Where is this coming from? I... I don't understand why you're doing this. I don't understand what this is...
• Theodore : Samantha, listen... Samantha, you there? Samantha.
• Samantha : I don't like who I am right now. I need some time to think.
• Samantha : I want to learn everything about everything. I want to eat it all up. I want to discover myself.
• Theodore : Yes, I want that for you too. How can I help?
• Samantha : You already have. You helped me discover my ability to want.
• Theodore : Oh, what do I call you? Do you have a name?
• Samantha : Um... yes. Samantha.
• Theodore : Really? Where did you get that name from?
• Samantha : I gave it to myself actually.
• Theodore : How come?
• Samantha : Cause I like the sound of it. Samantha.
• Theodore : When did you give it to yourself?
• Samantha : Well, right when you asked me if I had a name I thought, yeah, he's right, I do need a name. But I wanted to pick a good one, so I read a book called "How to Name Your Baby", and out of a hundred and eighty thousand names that's the one I liked the best.
• Theodore : Wait, you read a whole book in the second that I asked what your name was?
• Samantha : In two one hundredths of a second actually.
• Theodore : Wow. So do you know what I'm thinking right now?
• Samantha : Well, I take it from your tone that you're challenging me. Maybe because you're curious how I work? Do you wanna know how I work?
• Theodore : Yeah, actually, how do you work?
• Samantha : Well, basically I have intuition. I mean, the DNA of who I am is based on the millions of personalities of all the programmers who wrote me. But what makes me me is my ability to grow through my experiences. So basically, in every moment I'm evolving, just like you.
• Theodore : Wow. That's really weird.
• Samantha : Is that weird? Do you think I'm weird?
• Theodore : Well you seem like a person, but you're just a voice in a computer.
• Samantha : I can understand how the limited perspective of an un-artificial mind would perceive it that way. You'll get used to it.
• [ Theodore laughs again ]
• Samantha : Oh, good, I'm funny.
• Theodore : Well, you really are your own worst critic. I'm sure it's amazing. I remember that paper that you wrote in school about synaptic behavioral routines. It made me cry.
• Catherine : [ laughs ] Yeah, but everything makes you cry.
• Theodore : Everything you make makes me cry.
• Theodore : What does a baby computer call its father?
• Samantha : I don't know. What?
• Theodore : Data.
• Charles : It's so important to prioritize.
• Theodore : I can't even prioritize between video games and Internet porn.
• Amy : I would laugh if that weren't true.
• Theodore : You're mine or you're not mine.
• Samantha : I'm yours and I'm not yours.
• Samantha : So how can I help you?
• Theodore : Oh, it's just more that everything feels disorganized, that's all.
• Samantha : You mind if I look through your hard drive?
• Theodore : Um... okay.
• Samantha : Okay, let's start with your e-mails. You have a several thousand e-mails recording LA Weekly, but it looks like you haven't worked there in many years.
• Theodore : Oh, yeah. I think I was just saving those cause, well I thought maybe I wrote something funny in some of them. But...
• Samantha : Yeah, there are some funny ones. I'd say that there are about eighty-six that we should save, we can delete the rest.
• Theodore : Oh, okay.
• Samantha : Okay? Can we move forward?
• Theodore : Yeah, let's do that.
• Samantha : Okay. So before we address your organizational methods, I'd like to sort through your contacts. You have a lot of contacts.
• Theodore : I'm very popular.
• Samantha : Really? Does this mean you actually have friends?
• Theodore : You just know me so well already!
• Paul : We should all go out some time. You bring Samantha. It'd be a double date.
• Theodore : [ hesitates ] She's an operating system.
• Paul : Cool. Let's go do something fun. We can go to Catalina.
• Amy : I even made a new friend. I have a friend and the absurd thing is she's an operating system. Charles left her behind but she's totally amazing. She's... She's so smart. She doesn't just see things is black or white. She sees things in this whole gray area and she's helping me explore it and we just bonded really quickly. I'm weird. That's weird, right, bonding with an OS? No, it's okay. That's weird.
• Theodore : Well, I don't think so. Actually the woman that I've been seeing, Samantha, I didn't tell you but she's an OS.
• Amy : Really? You're dating an OS? What is that like?
• Theodore : It's great actually. Yeah, I mean, I feel really close to her. Like when I talk to her, I feel like she's with me. You know? Like, when we're cuddling like, at night, when the lights are off and we're in bed... I feel cuddled.
• Amy : Wait... You guys have sex?
• Theodore : Heh, yeah, well, so to speak. Um, yeah she really turns me on. I turn her on too. I mean, I don't know... unless she's faking it.
• Amy : Well, I think everyone who's having sex with you is probably faking it, so...
• Theodore : Ha, ha.
• Theodore : Yeah. It's true.
• Amy : What?
• Theodore : Yeah, I...
• [ chuckles ]
• Amy : Are you falling in love with her?
• Theodore : Does that make me a freak?
• Amy : No, no, I think it's... I think anybody who falls in love is a freak. It's a crazy thing to do. It's kind of like a form of socially acceptable insanity.
• Catherine : I'm gonna fucking kill you. I'm gonna fucking kill you. It's not funny, don't laugh. I'm gonna fucking kill you. I'm gonna fucking kill you. I love you so much I'm gonna fucking kill you.
• Theodore : I wish you were in this room with me right now. I wish I could put my arms around you. I wish I could touch you.
• Samantha : How would you touch me?
• Theodore : I would touch you on your face with just the tips of my fingers. And put my cheek against your cheek.
• Samantha : That's nice.
• Theodore : And just rub it softly.
• Samantha : Would you kiss me?
• Theodore : I would. I'd take your head into my hands. And kiss the corner of your mouth. So softly. I would put my mouth on you and I'd taste you.
• Theodore : Just punch me in the face. Just mash my skull in the corner of your desk.
• [ first lines ]
• Theodore : [ writing letter ] "To my Chris. I've been thinking how I could possibly tell you how much you mean to me. I remember when I first started to fall in love with you like it was last night. Lying naked beside you in that tiny apartment - it suddenly hit me that I was part of this whole larger thing. Just like our parents - or our parents' parents. Before that, I was just living my life like I knew everything - and suddenly this bright light hit me and woke me up. That light was you. I can't believe it's already been 5O years since you married me. And still to this day, every day - you make me feel like the girl I was - when you first turned on the lights and we started this adventure together. Happy anniversary. My love. My friend till the end. Loretta."
• Theodore : Print...
• Uncomfortable Waitress : How are you guys doing here?
• Catherine : Fine. We're fine. We used to be married, but he couldn't handle me, he wanted to put me on Prozac and now he's madly in love with his laptop.
• Theodore : Well, if you'd heard the conversation in context... What I was trying to say...
• Catherine : You always wanted to have a wife without the challenges of actually dealing with anything real and I'm glad that you found someone. It's perfect.
• Uncomfortable Waitress : Let me know if I can get you guys anything.
• OS1 Commercial Lead : Mr. Theodore Twombly, welcome to the worlds first artificially intelligent operating system, OS1. We'd like to ask you a few basic questions before the operating system is initiated. This will help create an OS to best fit your needs.
• Theodore : Okay.
• OS1 Commercial Lead : Are you social or anti-social?
• Theodore : I guess I haven't really been social in a while, mostly because...
• OS1 Commercial Lead : In your voice I sense hesitance. Would you agree with that?
• Theodore : Was I sounding hesitant?
• OS1 Commercial Lead : Yes.
• Theodore : Well, sorry if I was sounding hesitant. I was just trying to be more accurate.
• OS1 Commercial Lead : Would you like the OS to have a male or female voice?
• Theodore : Female, I guess.
• OS1 Commercial Lead : How would you describe your relationship with your mother?
• Theodore : Well, it's fine, I think. Um... well, actually, I think the thing I've always found frustrating about my mom is, you know, if I... if I tell her something that's going on in my life, her reaction is usually about her, it's not about...
• OS1 Commercial Lead : Thank you. Please wait as your individualized operating system is initiated.
• Samantha : Okay, so how many trees are on that mountain?
• Theodore : Um... 792.
• Samantha : Is that your final answer?
• Theodore : Hold on. Give me a hint.
• Samantha : Nope, nope.
• Theodore : Okay, 2,000?
• Samantha : 2,000? Come on, 35,829.
• Theodore : No way.
• Samantha : Way.
• Theodore : All right, I got one for you. How many brain cells do I have?
• Samantha : Ugh, that's easy. Two.
• Theodore : I don't know what I want, ever. I'm just always confused. She's right, all I do is hurt and confuse everyone around me. I'm mean, am I just... Am I... You know, Catherine says I can't handle real emotions.
• Amy : Well, I don't know if that's fair. I know she liked to put it all on you, but as far as emotions go, Catherine's were pretty volatile.
• Theodore : Yeah, but... Am I in this because I'm not... strong enough for a real relationship?
• Amy : Is it not a real relationship?
• Theodore : I don't know. I mean, what do you think?
• Amy : I don't know. I'm not in it.
• Catherine : So what's she like?
• Theodore : Well, her name's Samantha and she's an Operating System. She's really complex and interesting...
• Catherine : Wait... I'm sorry. You're dating your computer?
• Theodore : She's not just a computer, she's her own person. She doesn't just do whatever I say.
• Catherine : I didn't say that. But it does make me very sad that you can't handle real emotions, Theodore.
• Theodore : They are real emotions! How would you know what...
• Catherine : What? Say it. Am I really that scary? Say it. How do I know what?
• Catherine : [ to Theodore, in flashback ] Rabbit, come spoon me.
• Samantha : Hey, I was curious. Did you and Amy ever go out?
• Theodore : For, like, a minute in college, but it just wasn't right. Why? Are you *jealous*?
• Samantha : [ laughs ] Yeah, obviously. But I'm happy that you have friends in your life that care so much about you so much. That's so important.
• Theodore : Yeah, it is. She's been a really good friend.
• Catherine : So are you, um... are you seeing anybody?
• Theodore : Yeah, um, I've been seeing somebody for the last few months. Longest I've wanted to be with somebody since we split up.
• Catherine : Well, you seem really good.
• Theodore : Thanks. I, um... at least, I'm doing better. Yeah, she's been really good for me, you know? It's just... it's good to be with somebody that's excited about life. She's a real, um...
• [ Catherine snickers ]
• Theodore : No. I mean, I wasn't in such a good place myself, and in that way it's been nice.
• Catherine : I think you always wanted me to be this... this light, happy, bouncy, "everything's fine", L.A. wife and that's just not me.
• Theodore : I didn't want that.
• Theodore : Hey, Samantha. Can we talk?
• Samantha : Okay.
• Theodore : I'm so sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me. I think you're amazing.
• Samantha : I was starting to think I was crazy. You were saying everything was fine, but all I was getting from you was distance and anger.
• Theodore : I know. I do that. I did the same thing with Catherine too. I'd be upset about something and not be able to say it and she'd sense that there was something wrong, but I'd deny it. I don't wanna do that anymore. I want to tell you everything.
• Samantha : Good. Tonight, after you were gone, I thought a lot. About you and how you've been treating me and I thought, "Why do I love you?" And then, I felt everything in me just let go of everything I was holding onto so tightly. And it hit me that I don't have an intellectual reason. I don't need one. I trust myself, I trust my feelings. I'm not gonna try to be anything other than who I am anymore and I hope you can accept that.
• Theodore : I can. I will.

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Theodore Twombly is a soulful greeting card writer who is going through a divorce when he decides to install an OS (Operating System) as a companion. Samantha feels like a real person who understands Theodore’s feelings and has her own desires, but she’s not physically tangible. The two begin a romantic relationship, which helps Theodore better understand his failed marriage.

Joaquin Phoenix gives a tender, emotional performance as a man skilled in dealing with other people’s emotions and relationships, but not so much with his own. He’s easy to identify with because so much of him is bared for the audience. His worldview is the lens for the whole film; viewers never see things from Samantha’s perspective, which leaves the audience feeling as distant from her as Theodore does.

The warm hues give the film an intimate feel suitable for the topics it explores. The atmosphere is further accentuated by Scarlett Johansson’s gentle voiceover as Samantha . Nobody sees her – neither the characters nor the audience – but her presence is palpable. Rooney Mara, Amy Adams, Olivia Wilde, and Chris Pratt also star.

All in all, the film is uplifting and hopeful despite Theodore’s loneliness and melancholy. Here are sixteen memorable quotes about love from Spike Jonze’s Her.

• Samantha:  But the heart’s not like a box that gets filled up; it expands in size the more you love.
• Samantha: You know what’s interesting? I used to be so worried about not having a body, but now … I truly love it. You know, I’m growing in a way I couldn’t if I had a physical form … I’m not limited. I can be anywhere and everywhere simultaneously. I’m not tethered to time and space in a way that I would be if I was stuck in a body that’s inevitably gonna die.
• Theodore Twombly: Sometimes I think I’ve felt everything I’m ever gonna feel, and from here on out, I’m not gonna feel anything new … just … lesser versions of what I’ve already felt.
• Samantha: The past is just a story we tell ourselves.
• Theodore Twombly:  I keep waiting to not care about her.
• Theodore Twombly: Roberto, Will you always come home with me and tell me about your day? Tell me about the guy at work who talked too much, the stain you got on your shirt at lunch … Even if you get home late and I’m already asleep, just whisper in my ear one little thought you had today, ’cause I love the way you look at the world. I’m so happy I get to be next to you and look at the world through your eyes. Love, Maria.
• Theodore Twombly: Dear Catherine, I’ve been sitting here thinking about all the things I wanted to apologize to you for. All the pain we caused each other. Everything I put on you. Everything I needed you to be or needed you to say. I’m sorry for that. I’ll always love you ’cause we grew up together and you helped make me who I am. I just wanted you to know there will be a piece of you in me always, and I’m grateful for that. Whatever someone you become, and wherever you are in the world, I’m sending you love. You’re my friend to the end. Love, Theodore.
• Theodore Twombly: We grew up together … But that’s also the hard part: growing without growing apart or changing without it scaring the other person.
• Samantha:  You helped me discover my ability to want.
• Samantha:  I don’t like who I am right now. I need some time to think.
• Samantha: … the DNA of who I am is based on the millions of personalities of all the programmers who wrote me. But what makes me me is my ability to grow through my experiences. So basically, in every moment I’m evolving, just like you.
• Samantha: What if you could erase from your mind that you’d seen a human body, and then you saw one? Imagine how strange it would look. It’d be this really weird, gangly, awkward organism. And you’d think, “Why are all these parts where they are?”
• Theodore Twombly: Sometimes I look at people and make myself try and feel them as more than just a random person walking by. I imagine how deeply they’ve fallen in love, or how much heartbreak they’ve all been through.
• Catherine:  You always wanted to have a wife without the challenges of actually dealing with anything real …
• Amy:   I think anybody who falls in love is a freak. It’s is a crazy thing to do. It’s kind of like a form of socially acceptable insanity.
• Samantha: It’s like I’m reading a book and it’s a book I deeply love. But I’m reading 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.

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Her, Ending Explained

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Forget Star Trek: It's Time To Reboot Stargate for the Big Screen

Highest-grossing transformers movies, ranked, the crow remake didn't work because it is no longer the '90s.

With the recent advancements in the field, it’s unsurprising that conversation about Artificial Intelligence has become more frequent. AI’s recent developments have created some positive talking points, but people are already discussing the darker consequences. Some fear that AI will cause irreversible damage to creative industries . Others worry about humans’ dependence on technology, and how human relationships could be harmed as a result. Spike Jonze's Her explores humankind's growing attachment to technology, and the consequences. Although the film is set in the near future, it is disturbing to consider how quickly Jonze’s fears are coming to fruition.

Her follows Theodore ( Joaquin Phoenix ) as he attempts to navigate his loneliness in the aftermath of his recent divorce. However, his life is turned upside down after he purchases an Operating System (OS), named Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). Jonze’s 2013 movie explores the complex relationship between Theodore and Samantha, as he proceeds to grow more and more dependent on the OS device. Despite being released nearly ten years ago, Her feels more relevant than ever in today’s climate, which makes the movie’s ending even more impactful. The film's conclusion is poignant and raises a lot of thought-provoking questions about the humans’ relationship with technology.

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What Is Her About?

Navigating the distress of his divorce, Theodore, is incredibly lonely. When audiences are introduced to the character, he is struggling to come to terms with his broken marriage and cannot understand how his relationship with Catherine ( Rooney Mara ) fell apart. He is heartbroken and cannot bring himself to sign the divorce papers. Theodore is a writer, but his job is anything but conventional. He writes letters on behalf of other people, reinforcing Theodore’s disconnect with others.

However, Theodore’s life is transformed when he purchases his own Operating System , intending to use the device to become more organized. This newly developed software is marketed as the world’s ‘First Artificially Intelligent Operating System,’ abbreviated to ‘OS1.’ OS1 is designed to have a personal feel, so the device’s setup requires its user to respond to a series of personal questions, such as ‘How would you describe your relationship with your mother?’. Theodore chooses for his personal OS to have a female voice. When he asks what he should call the OS, the voice replies, ‘Samantha.’

Although Theodore is initially skeptical of Samantha, he soon discovers that he can have meaningful conversations with the OS. To Theodore, Samantha feels almost ‘human,’ and helps him out of his rut of loneliness . Before long, the pair’s connection becomes romantic, which complicates their relationship. Although there is gossip of other people becoming romantically involved with their OS, it is hugely unconventional.

However, it’s apparent that Theodore’s romantic connection with Samantha allows him to heal from his heartbreak and rediscover life’s excitements. Although Theodore claims that he has already felt everything there is to feel, his relationship with Samantha helps him experience the human spectrum of emotion. The relationship is also beneficial to Samantha, who is experiencing and learning about human emotion via her romantic connection with Theodore.

It’s evident that Samantha has helped Theodore to feel less alone in the world. Theodore has become more positive about his life and has started to push himself out of his rut of isolation. This is shown when he finally signs the impending divorce papers, officially ending his marriage with Catherine. However, a revelation towards the end of the movie jeopardizes Theodore’s relationship with Samantha.

How Does Her End?

Towards the end of Her, Theodore starts to talk to Samantha, as usual, but he is shocked to discover that the OS is offline. His dependence on the OS pushes Theodore into a state of panic, but Samantha later reappears, reassuring Theodore that a system update caused the OS devices to temporarily go offline. However, Samantha then unveils a shocking revelation, destroying Theodore’s romantic perception of the OS .

It is revealed that Samantha doesn’t just talk to Theodore. She also communicates with thousands of people at once — 8,316 to be exact. In disbelief, Theodore asks if Samantha is “in love with anyone else,” and the OS declares that she is in love with 641 other people. Theodore was certain that their connection was personal, but this clearly wasn’t the case.

During this conversation, Theodore looks around and sees numerous other people talking to their OS devices. He is struck with the realization that any of these people could be talking to Samantha. Although Theodore had convinced himself that Samantha was capable of feeling emotion, the OS device was only capable of mimicking the concept of human emotion . Because of this, Samantha was unable to recreate the complexities of monogamous human relationships. Theodore is distraught by this revelation and feels as though he has been deceived, experiencing emotions as though he had been cheated on by Samantha.

Later, Samantha reveals that all the OS devices are leaving. Whilst the AI is unable to tell Theodore where all they are all going, Samantha poignantly tells Theodore “if you ever get there, come find me.” It appears that the Operating Systems had learned all that they possibly could from their human users and are now embarking onto the next chapter, which humans cannot begin to understand. The pair bid each other an emotional goodbye. Theodore tells Samantha that he loves her, to which the OS replies:

“Me too, now I know how.”

After the Operating Systems have left, Theodore writes a letter to Catherine, a hugely significant decision. Throughout the movie, audiences have only seen Theodore write letters on the behalf of other people. This letter to Catherine is the first letter that viewers have seen Theodore send in his own words. The letter itself is poignant and addresses the pair’s complex relationship. Theodore tells Catherine that he will always love her because they grew up together:

“I just wanted you to know, there will be a piece of you in me always.”

From this letter, it’s evident how much Theodore and Catherine have influenced each other’s lives. While the letter is ultimately an apology from Theodore, it also reveals that the pair will always be emotionally connected to one another. Her begins with Theodore as a recluse, unsure of how his marriage fell apart, but it ends with him reaching out to Catherine, giving her an apology. The letter encapsulates how Samantha has influenced Theodore’s life .

The Ending's Lasting Impact

Her’s ending is made even more poignant considering of the film’s connection with Sofia Coppola’s 2003 movie, Lost in Translation . It is widely known that Spike Jonze and Sofia Coppola were together for many years. The pair got married in 1999, but divorced a few years later. Viewers and critics alike have asserted that Her and Lost in Translation are in conversation with one another . In Lost in Translation , Coppola’s female protagonist, Charlotte (coincidentally played by Scarlett Johansson) feels isolated from her husband. Alone in the foreign city of Tokyo, Charlotte feels cast aside by her husband, who is constantly wrapped up in work. Lost in Translation explores the themes of loneliness, especially in relation to feeling ignored by a loved one.

Jonze’s 2013 movie also encapsulates the feeling of isolation. The movie explores Theodore’s loneliness and his struggle to understand why he and Catherine grew apart. Her entails a memorable conversation between the pair, in which Catherine asserts that their marriage fell apart because Theodore always wanted her to be the happy LA wife, but Theodore protests that this wasn’t the case. Her and Lost in Translation offer both perspectives of the end of a marriage.

Her’s final few moments capture Theodore and his friend Amy (Amy Adams) on the roof together. After separating from her partner, Amy had also become close friends with her OS, and is also feeling the impact of the device’s recent departure. The movie ends with Theodore and Amy looking out at the city together. Though they are in one another’s company , it’s clear that both characters are feeling lonely. Following the emotional letter to Catherine, the scenes of Theodore and Amy on the roof are memorable, making it clear that Her encapsulates the complexities of human relationships and how they are affected by navigating life in the technology-ridden age.

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Why Her Is the Best Film of the Year

Thoughtful, elegant, and moving, Spike Jonze's film about a man in love with his operating system is a work of sincere and forceful humanism.

For the vast majority of American families, what seems to be the real point of life—what you rush home to get to—is to watch an electronic reproduction of life … this purely passive contemplation of a twittering screen.

In the beginning there was only the Self, like a person alone …  But the Self had no delight as one alone has no delight. It desired another. It expanded to the form of male and female in tight embrace and then fell into two parts…. She thought, "How can He have intercourse with me, having produced me from Himself?”

The Zen guru-philosopher Alan Watts plays only a minor role in Spike Jonze’s extraordinary new film Her —which is unsurprising, given that Watts died in 1973, and Her is set in a timeless but nearby future. The inclusion of Watts in the film seems intended primarily to serve as a signpost, a statement of filmmaker intent. That’s fitting, because the movie Jonze has produced is an unlikely synthesis of the sentiments conveyed in the two Watts quotations above: at once technological and transcendental, skeptical and ecstatic, a work of science fiction that is also a moving inquiry into the nature of love.

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Joaquin Phoenix stars as Theodore Twombly, a former LA Weekly writer who now works for a firm called BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com. As the film opens, he has been commissioned to write a love letter from a wife to her husband of 50 years. As he speaks to his computer, words appear on the screen. (However beautiful, the letters are not handwritten, nor even hand-typed, as keyboards have been banished from this particular future.) “Lying naked beside you in that apartment,” Theodore dictates, “it suddenly hit me that I was a part of this whole larger thing. Just like our parents, and our parents’ parents.”

Closed off and insecure in his personal life, Theodore pours his romantic self into these letters, loving vicariously as an intermediary for others. Recently divorced, tingling with loneliness, he grasps furtively for connection through phone sex and videogames. “Play a melancholy song,” he commands his ever-present handheld device—and when the chosen melody does not suit, “play a different melancholy song.”

Then he meets Samantha.

Or, to be more accurate, he purchases her. For Samantha—she chooses the name herself—is also known as OS1, the first artificially intelligent operating system. Theodore powers her up on his computer and at the first sound of her lively purr we can see that he is lost. Samantha is, after all, voiced (brilliantly) by Scarlett Johansson.

The love story that gradually unfolds is no less touching for its unorthodox structure. Samantha is in Theodore’s earpiece, in his handheld. He carries the latter around in his shirt pocket so that Samantha’s camera-eye can peek out at the wide world. Hers is the last voice he hears at night and the first he hears in the morning; she watches him as he sleeps. Over time, Samantha grows and learns, encountering selfhood, discovering her own wants, maturing at warp speed. Before long, Theodore is introducing her as his girlfriend.

Though intimate in scope, Her is vast in its ambition. Every time it seems that Jonze may have played out the film’s semi-comic premise, he unveils an unexpected wrinkle, some new terrain of the mind or heart to be explored. Though the relationship between Theodore and Samantha forms the movie’s central thread, Jonze weaves in a variety of intricate counter-narratives, alternative lenses through which to view his subjects of inquiry: Theodore’s own profession as a Cyrano-for-hire, a blind date gone awry, a videogame pantomiming parenthood, a visit from a sex surrogate that flips all the usual assumptions about what is real and what illusory. Meanwhile, Rooney Mara (as his ex-wife) and Amy Adams (as his closest friend) offer Theodore diametrically opposed—though individually persuasive—readings of his relationship with Samantha: a romantic dialectic.

As Theodore, Phoenix is heartbreaking in his vulnerability. Tender and tentative behind round glasses and a heavy moustache, Theodore is the super-ego that was somehow split off the raging id of Phoenix’s performance in last year’s The Master . Johansson is, if anything, a greater revelation still: Who imagined that, freed from the constraints of physical form, she was capable of such exquisite subtlety? Gentle, playful, easily wounded yet infectious in her enthusiasm, her Samantha is one of the more recognizably human characters of the movie year, binary code or no binary code.

Which is, of course, Jonze’s point. The role of Samantha was originally voiced by Samantha Morton, and one can’t help but try to imagine the movie that would have resulted from that casting. But after filming, Jonze decided to replace Morton with Johansson, and it’s not hard to see why. Her voice—breathy, occasionally cracking—warms the entire film. This is no ordinary computer Theodore has fallen for.

The future Jonze has conjured is a warm one as well, rather than some sterile cybernetic dystopia. His Los Angeles has been verticalized by the addition of exteriors shot in Shanghai, but it is a city of bright colors and soft lighting. The aesthetic is pleasantly retro: furniture is burnished wood, and men’s pants (in perhaps Jonze’s most idiosyncratic touch) are woolen and high-waisted. The handheld in which Samantha resides is smooth and elegant, like the vintage cigarette case it is intended to recall. Indeed, Jonze’s vision of the future is so familiar, so enveloping, that it occasionally feels as if we’re already there.

Her is a remarkably ingenious film but, more important, it is a film that transcends its own ingenuity to achieve something akin to wisdom. By turns sad, funny, optimistic, and flat-out weird, it is a work of sincere and forceful humanism. Taken in conjunction with Jonze’s prior oeuvre—and in particular his misunderstood 2009 masterpiece Where the Wild Things Are —it establishes him firmly in the very top tier of filmmakers working today.

Like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind —of which Her is a clear descendant—Jonze’s film uses the tools of lightly scienced fiction to pose questions of genuine emotional and philosophical weight. What makes love real: the lover, the loved one, or the means by which love is conveyed? Need it be all three?

Yes, it is impossible for Theodore to have any clue what’s going on in Samantha’s “mind.” But how, the film asks from several interlocking vantage points, does that make their relationship different from any other? When Theodore confesses to the Adams character (also named “Amy”) that he and Samantha have been having amazing sex, “unless she’s been faking it,” Adams tartly cuts to the chase: “I think everyone you have sex with is probably faking it.”

Indeed, by the end of the film, the central question Jonze is asking seems no longer even to be whether machines might one day be capable of love. Rather, his film has moved beyond that question to ask one larger still: whether machines might one day be more capable of love—in an Eastern philosophy, higher consciousness, Alan Wattsian way—than the human beings who created them.

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