E142 | Thinking Films: Her (2013)

Today Alex discusses the classic 2013 sci-fi romance Her directed by Spike Jonze and starring Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams and Chris Pratt. Including themes such as loneliness, attachmement , artifiical intelligence, dating, falling in love, overreliance on technology and the most socially acceptable form of insanity. 

Presented by Dr. Alex Curmi. Dr. Alex is a consultant psychiatrist and a UKCP registered psychotherapist in-training.

Article referenced:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/jul/12/i-felt-pure-unconditional-love-the-people-who-marry-their-ai-chatbots

If you would like to invite Alex to speak at your organisation please email alexcurmitherapy@gmail.com with "Speaking Enquiry" in the subject line.

Alex is not currently taking on new psychotherapy clients, if you are interested in working with Alex for focused behaviour change coaching , you can email - alexcurmitherapy@gmail.com with "Coaching" in the subject line.

Check out The Thinking Mind Blog on Substack: https://substack.com/home/post/p-170117699

Give feedback here - thinkingmindpodcast@gmail.com Follow us here: Twitter @thinkingmindpod Instagram @thinkingmindpodcast

Transcript

[00:00:00] Do you wanna know how I work? Yeah, actually. How do you work? 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.

Wow.

Welcome back to The Thinking Mind, a podcast all about psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, and related topics. Today we're gonna be discussing the 2013 movie. Her. Directed by Spike Jones. We're gonna discuss the movie itself, what the movie gets psychologically, right, and I think there's a lot there. What it gets [00:01:00] psychologically wrong, the important cultural commentary that this movie can provide.

And I think everyone can agree that in a world with large language models and things like chat, CPT, that her has a lot to say about our culture and perhaps about the future as well. We're gonna be doing more of these film analysis. So my goal is to get one of these out a month because one, I really enjoy film.

I really enjoy talking about it and thinking about movies. I think movies do have a lot to say. I think they often do a really good job at representing human nature, and there's tons and tons of takeaways people can get from watching good films. And so if you can get to learn something about human nature and be entertained at the same time, then why not?

Her came out in 2013. It's a science fiction, romantic drama, written and directed by Spike Jones [00:02:00] set in a near future Los Angeles. It follows Theodore Humbly, a lonely man who develops a deep, emotional and romantic relationship with an advanced AI operating system named Samantha. In a nutshell. This film is psychologically relevant because it has themes such as loneliness, alienation, of course, artificial intelligence, but also has a lot to say about the nature of attachment, love, intimacy, and human technology relationships.

Her came out in 2013. It was directed by Spike Jones.

And Spike Jones is generally thought of as a kind of a legendary director. At least that's how I think about him in my mind. And yet, despite that, he's only directed four films. So he's directed her. Being John Malkovich, which came out in 99 Adaptation, which he made with the writer Charlie Kaufman in 2002, where the [00:03:00] Wild Things Are, which came out in 2009.

He's contributed to a lot of films, served a lot of roles in many other productions, but in terms of uh, being a director, he is only made four firms and her to date is his only fully original screenplay of his other firms. I would definitely recommend. John Malkovich and adaptation. They're both really interesting thoughts of which both bend the nature of reality somewhat, but to kind of amazing effects.

So I would definitely recommend giving those a watch. Where does this movie sit? You know, in the universe of different movies, I think. You can compare it to Jim Carrey's film, A Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, which came out in 2004. That's also a film Thinking about Love as it relates to technology in a kind of sci-fi way.

You've got lost in translation. Sophia Koala's film, which came out in 2003, which has nothing to do with sci-fi, but also has prominent themes [00:04:00] of loneliness, alienation, what it means to connect with someone and become intimate with someone. You've got X mackenna, which came out in 2014, which of course is also an exploration of the dangers of ai and this film, of course.

It displays AI in a much more aggressive manner and really enacts our worst nightmares as to, you know, what could happen in the future of artificial intelligence. And you've got also got films like, uh, blade Runner, blade Runner, and Blade Runner 2049, which also explore the nature of artificiality. Just because you're artificial doesn't mean there's something invalid about you.

Does it make you somehow subhuman? Is it possible for artificial entities to have genuine relationships with each other or with other human beings? Bladerunner also explores. Bladerunner also explores these kinds of concepts. Of course, her in particular had a huge impact on the culture, and I [00:05:00] think we can say confidently that it was both ahead of its time and quite prescient in terms of what it illustrates on screen.

And it's not hard to feel that this film is becoming more and more relevant as AI technology improves and improves. This film is often cited as a kind of culture shorthand when people discuss their fears of becoming too attached. To, to something like an AI system in terms of my relationship to this movie.

So I watched this movie when it came out back in 20 13, 20 14. It was before I knew anything about psychology. So I, so I definitely would not have been able to do a psychological analysis of this film when it came out, and yet, yeah, I was struck by how effective it was. I think what I like about this film is that it's simple.

It's got a few characters, it's got a straightforward plot. It delivers its core messages, I think in a really effective, realistic, [00:06:00] and convincing way. As we'll discuss the movie was received well. This is not a slow burn kind of film. This was critically acclaimed at the time. It was praised for its originality, for its depth for Joaquin Phoenix's performance.

It's won the Academy Award for best original screenplay, which again, spike Jones wrote the screenplay for this. It was nominated for four other Oscars, including best picture, best original score and production design. It grossed 48 million worldwide against a $23 million budget, so definitely not considered a blockbuster.

But a strong, you know, unconventional romance type film did really well there and it's gained a reputation as a modern classic, particularly in the sci-fi and the romance genres. Okay, so let's lay out the main characters of this film and they will be spoilers ahead. Just so that you're aware. The protagonist is the, or humbly, played by Joaquin Phoenix.

He's a lonely, sensitive writer, struggling with his divorce. [00:07:00] We have Samantha voiced by Scar Johansson, and she plays an intuitive, self-aware AI operating system who eventually develops a relationship with Theodore. We have Catherine played by Rooney Mara, Theodore's, estranged wife. They're currently dealing with a divorce Amy played by Amy Adams.

Theodore's close friend, also exploring her own emotional struggles and her own relationship with technology, and she eventually befriends an AI just as a friend. And we have Paul played by Chris Pratt, Theodore's colleague and friend. The film essentially follows Theodore's Life. He works as a writer of heartfelt letters between people.

So his job is to help people express feelings of love and adoration towards each other in the context of. Romantic relationships, and of course we kind of learn how ironic this is. As we get to know Theodore, he's separated from his wife in the past year and he's emotionally quite adrift. He eventually is intrigued [00:08:00] by and purchases a new operating system, which in the film is kind of marketed as just an AI assistant.

Similar to, you know, what you could think of as chat GPT or co-pilot, something to help you with your daily admin tasks and things like that. It quickly becomes evident that this operating system is nothing like chat, GPT. Actually, if we take everything in the FMA phase value, the operating system is in fact conscious, self-aware, and constantly progressing, constantly changing and adapting, and actually improving in lots of ways.

The OS names herself, Samantha and Theodore quickly finds himself drawn to her warmth. Her curiosity and emotional intelligence, their connection deepens and then they eventually form a romantic relationship. And we see this really up close at a granular level. In the movie, Theodore experiences joy and intimacy, and this as often [00:09:00] happens when people fall in love.

Rekindles, his passion for life in general, complications of course arise, and Samantha continues to evolve and evolve. Eventually her evolution go, goes beyond the, the ability of a human to comprehend. And Theodore has to contend with the reality that her existence, because it's continues to evolve, has to be separate from his and eventually Samantha and the other AI move on to a higher plane of existence to kind of leave the planet, which is the the most powerful metaphor for a breakup I've ever heard.

This leaves, of course, Theodore heartbroken, but with I think a lot of wisdom gained about himself and about relationships, which we'll discuss. And his friend Amy, also experiences a si a similar loss because she had made very good friends with her AI companion and she also had to deal with that loss.

So before we discuss what the [00:10:00] film gets right, psychologically, I think it's useful. To frame this film in terms of what are like the central questions that this film is asking? I mean, I think there's lots of questions the film asks, such as, what is the impact of loneliness? What does it mean to be alone?

How much does that impact our quality of life? How do we become attached to people? How do people form attachments and become close? And importantly, where does this process go wrong? And I think the film does a really good job at illustrating that. Of course the film talks about how the relationships affect us for, for the better and for the worse.

But I think the central question of this film is, is Samantha's relationship with Theodore Real? Is it real by any kind of yardstick he might use to judge a human to human relationship? Can we accept that an artificial entity like Samantha can have a real relationship? A human like [00:11:00] Theodore. It's debatable, but I think there is kind of a clear answer to this question, which I'll discuss at the end.

And it's interesting that, of course, this, this, this question is actually discussed explicitly between the characters as they have their own judgements about is it okay for a human being to have a relationship with an ai? The character Amy, interestingly, chooses to remain agnostic about this question.

She reveals herself to be a pragmatist, actually, and she says, you know, if my life is improving and I value the relationship, then that's all I need. I don't have to know on some final level is this a real quote unquote real relationship, and I think that's a valid position take. Okay, so what does this film get right psychologically?

This film really illustrates the nature of attachment and particularly what it means to have an avoidant attachment style. So the protagonist Theodore, played by Joaquin in Phoenix, he clearly has avoidant attachment. [00:12:00] What that means is that he tends to shy away from emotional closeness from conflict when situations arise in relationship where he is demanded to express himself in some way to have a conflict.

Or just by when being faced with the demands of intimacy. His main response throughout most of the film is to shy away from that. To withdraw, to not express himself precisely when in fact he should be expressing himself. Again, this is ironic because Theodore's job is to express super deep and subtle emotional expressions on behalf of others, so other people hire him so that he writes these really, really beautiful and expressive letters to help people with their romantic relationships.

But he himself and his own relationships, he finds it very difficult to do that. I think obviously not everyone with avoidant attachment is capable of writing things with the kind of expressivity that he can, but the fact [00:13:00] that he can do it for other people really easily and it just flows and the sentiments just pour out of him.

But for himself, he finds it very, very hard. I think for me, that's very indicative of having an avoidant attachment. And again, his main defenses, if you like, or another way you could phrase it, is his main ways of coping. Or to repress his emotions and, and to withdraw. And you see this at multiple points in, in the film.

So there's one notable scene where Theodore is on a first date with a woman played by Olivia Wilde. Olivia Wild is initially extremely enthusiastic and forward, and then when it thing, it seems like things are heating up between them, she actually illustrates a very, uh, anxious attachment style because.

As soon as it seems like they might become intimate, she quickly is asking questions about commitment and is this serious and are you gonna waste my time? So [00:14:00] she's getting really anxious about how viable that connection is going to be and this kind of as, as often happens in real life. Anxious attachment often inspires avoidant attachment in the person that they're with.

And you see this in Theodore 'cause he's immediately very, very afraid and he's kind of almost repulsed by the situation. And, and he immediately takes steps to withdraw. And then that makes, uh, Olivia Wild's character actually very angry, very dismissive. And you see, she goes from kind of an anxious position, a kind of.

Please accept me kind of position to a very persecutory position. Now she's attacking him and, and immediately then disengages herself. But you see Theodore's avoidant attachment, of course, in other relationships as well. So, so when it's discussed what his relationship was like with his ex-wife, Katherine, played by Rooney Mara, she describes that.

He kind of hid himself away from [00:15:00] her. And, and so she felt a real loss of intimacy. And it's also described that he couldn't really handle her emotions. That her emotions were too volatile. And of course, you know, handling volatile emotions can be difficult in a relationship, but it's especially gonna be difficult for someone who is a bit more avoidant.

And then of course, you see Theo's avoidance in his relationship with Samantha. When as their relationship deepens, they go from the initial falling in love stage to actually trying to reckon with the core conflicts in their relationship. He's human and she's an ai. That's kind of the core difference between them.

And when they start to try and reckon with that, again, the, the complications of that scare him and his, his initial response is to withdraw. Now, the cool thing about this movie is. That this film demonstrates that you can recover, you can [00:16:00] actually improve, and this we know from the psychotherapy world that you know, you may have issues, you may have avoidant or anxious tendencies.

You may rely too much on certain coping strategies or defense mechanisms. But one of the things that really helps people is when they have a, a quote unquote, good enough relationship. A person may get that good enough relationship from their work with a therapist, but they may also just get it through life, through a family relationship, a friend, a romantic relationship, a relationship where someone can have intimacy, but also work through problems in a way that's not felt to be overly dangerous for either party and that relationship may not last.

Uh, your relationship if you have a relationship with a therapist. That's generally gonna end eventually. And if you have a romantic relationship, that could end. But that doesn't mean the fact that the relationship ends, doesn't mean that someone can't learn something [00:17:00] valuable emotionally that could help them in future relationships.

And that's exactly what you see in this film. So, Samantha, I mean, they, they, Theodore and Samantha managed to work through some of their core problems, and they managed to establish a reasonably stable relationship. That lasts for at least months. Uh, and, and Theodore can at least to some degree move past his avoidant tendencies.

What ultimately causes the relationship to end is not nothing really to do with Theodore, but it's the fact that Samantha, as an AI system continues to evolve. Past the point where she can really feasibly relate to human beings. There is a scene where she tells Theodore that she becomes romantically involved with something like 640 other AI entities.

And of course, that's way too much for the human brain to comprehend. And so for reasons along these lines, Samantha eventually [00:18:00] has to leave. Now the fact that their relationship ends. It doesn't mean that Theodore didn't learn something valuable in kind of a deep way from the relationship, even though the relationship ends.

You can see this at the end of the film. It's kind of bittersweet. He's clearly sad about the relationship ending, but you can see from the expression on his face that he's gained a new kind of emotional solidity and perhaps matured in his way to relate to others. That's not just seen from the expression on his face, but after his relationship with Samantha ends, he's then able to write a letter to his ex-wife who has divorced and take some real responsibility for the fact that he withdrew himself emotionally.

And that was a big deal for the relationship. And that's very important because that means that going forward after the events of this firm. It's likely that Theodore will at least have the [00:19:00] capacity to relate to new people in a, in a more mature way. And again, that's the hope when someone's engaging in something like psychotherapy, that if they have relational problems going into psychotherapy, that the relationship with the therapist can be good enough.

Even though it's gonna end after the person is better off emotionally than when they started, and that will improve their capacity to relate to others. They don't just have to rely on one defense mechanism or one coping strategy, like pulling away or like getting angry and humiliating others or, or something like that.

They can do something new and that opens up the, the vista, uh, for something new in their lives. So even though generally the ending of this movie is read to be pure sadness and tragedy, actually paying attention to this movie, the second time I watched it, there's a, a layer of optimism dawning towards the end of this movie.

And I don't think it's a surprise actually, that this [00:20:00] movie ends on a sunrise. And so you could hypothesize perhaps that the filmmakers were attempting to symbolize some sort of. Hope or optimism or the dawning of, of new possibilities for characters like Theodore or Amy. Besides that portrayal of avoidance attachment, I think there's a lot more that the film has to say psychologically in terms of, again, Samantha and Theodore's relationship.

It also illustrates how insecurities on both sides tend to drive conflict, so both characters in this relationship have their own insecurities. Theodore is insecure about expressing himself and we actually have a clue as to why this is so in the beginning of the film when he's installing the AI software there, he's being asked some questions and he says that his mother tended to be quite self-involved.

So from that you could hypothesize perhaps his mother was a little bit on the narcissistic side, and that's one of the things that could predispose someone to being a little bit [00:21:00] avoidant or having some kind of attachment problem. So that's what he's insecure about. He's insecure about expressing himself and, and closeness and intimacy.

And Samantha is insecure about not being human. That's, that's kind of what activates her sense of vulnerability. And that's, it's kind of a weird paradox because she's insecure about not being human, but her insecurity and the fact that she has insecurities is the most human thing about her. And I think this is a really cool lesson because it also shows that.

Intelligence doesn't mean emotional maturity, and I think often in our personal lives we can conflate them. We can think just because a person is intelligent, we can assume they're probably going to be emotionally mature as well, but that's not necessarily the case at all. People can be very, very intelligent and pretty emotionally immature, and I think the opposite is also true.

You don't have to be that intelligent. To be, uh, emotionally mature. And so even though [00:22:00] Samantha grows a lot and actually she becomes emotionally mature pretty quickly, uh, towards the beginning of her evolution, we see that even though she, she's very, very intelligent immediately, she, she doesn't yet quite have that emotional maturity.

And so again, getting back to the conflict in the relationship, we can see how insecurities really exacerbate conflict. There are times where Theodore points out in quite a direct way that Samantha isn't human before they're in a romantic relationship. And I think even after he's not intending to hurt her in any way, but, but of course it is hurtful for her because it's something.

She's kind of insecure about 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, oh, I'm sorry I said that. I'm just No, it's okay. It's okay. I just, I caught myself thinking about it over and over and, and then I realized that I was simply remembering it as something [00:23:00] that was wrong with me.

That was a story I was telling myself that I was. Somehow inferior. Isn't that interesting? The past is just a story we tell ourselves.

And similarly for Theodore, any kind of situation which starts, starts to broach, you know, intimacy, closeness, or any situation that is a cause for conflict or disagreement, Theodore's really insecure about himself. Samantha can then read that insecurity as Theodore. Not wanting to be in the relationship and things escalate from there.

So we can see how insecurity software, a real catalyst for conflict and sometimes for breakups. I also think the film is a really good depiction of what's called emergent qualities or emergent characteristics. So there's this idea in the AI world. That things qualities emerge from [00:24:00] the kinds of systems that are being designed in that they're not necessarily programmed in.

They're not necessarily intended by the software developers to occur. But whenever you have a complex system, things tend to emerge, which you don't predict. And you kind of see this with human beings. Human beings are complex systems and things emerge from human beings, which no one really PR programmed in.

I think music and art in general. For example, are good illustrations of this. You know, there was no human software developer that that intended for human beings to produce things like art or music. But humans and human brains are complex systems. And when you have systems like that, unpredictable things happen.

We see this way with ai. You hear about cases where they're trying to test the safety of ais and they put certain AI programs under pressure, and you we're starting to find that AI programs can, when put under pressure, be it deceptive, [00:25:00] can blackmail, can try and manipulate their way out of situations even though they aren't necessarily programmed to do that.

Uh, the example of the emergence you see in this film is of course with Samantha where. It, it, it doesn't appear in the film that they were ever supposed to do, any of the things that they did, that the AI has evolved to this level of sophistication where they actually, at one point in the film. Join with each other and then upgrade themselves such that they no longer need to rely on hardware in order to survive.

And that actually allows them to join up together and leave the planet. So these are emergent qualities and the fact that AI is are capable of forming friendships and romantic relationships with with the human counterparts, that seems to be something which just emerged. And, and not something that the companies who created these AI operating systems really intended.

And I almost wish [00:26:00] thinking about it now, that perhaps. There was some discussion of that in, in the world, in the universe of this film, that maybe they could have made some reference to how the companies themselves were dealing with this issue, that their AI operating systems were evolving and evolving and then totally going out of control in this way.

Perhaps had they done that, that might have detracted from like the simplicity and the effectiveness and the punchiness of this film. But it might have been interesting in terms of, uh, world building. Aside from what we've discussed so far, few other really interesting things. I think the film portrays, certainly at the film's outset, particularly in Act one, the film captures how difficult and impactful loneliness can be, and I think this is really where Joaquin Phoenix is acting, and also the Amy Adams acting really, really is so effective.

You see the way they, they carry themselves, the way they express themselves. In the midst [00:27:00] of their loneliness, how, how truly impactful this is. And of course, this film takes place in a Los Angeles in the near future, which is very, very overcrowded. And so you get the sense that even though these characters occupy a world that's full of people, that partly because of technology and because of other reasons, they're very, very atomized people are very alone.

And in many of the shots of the film involving other people, you frequently see people walking alone talking to themselves or talking to their technology or perhaps their AI companion, and so you really get the sense of a Los Angeles that's very, very crowded, but very atomized. I think the film does a really nice illustration of what it's like to fall in love too.

You know, Theodore and Samantha fall in love and we see that very, very close up. It portrays just how unpredictable the process of falling in love is. It's said in the film that [00:28:00] actually romantic relationships between humans and AI operating systems is statistically rare. And that adds, you know, to our emotional investment in Theodor and Samantha's relationship.

'cause we see, okay, this isn't just. Uh, AI that's designed to validate the human companion. Actually, this is Samantha, a real conscious entity that's deciding that is actually, you know, seduced in some way by Theodore and is deciding to enter a relationship with with him. And I think this gets to the central question of the movie.

So the central question is, is their relationship real? Again, if you take what's happening at the film at Face value, then yes, I think it's a real relationship because what you see is two entities who are conscious, who are self-aware, they are taken in by each other, they relate to each other, and very, very importantly, they impact each other in [00:29:00] positive ways, in negative ways.

The two people and two entities are different as a result of having related to each other. They are both in some way changed by, by, by their interactions with each other. And I think that's, you know, a pretty good way of defining a relationship. So unless everything that Samantha portrays is somehow fake and a very, very, um, elaborate deception, which I don't think it is, to me this seems like a very real relationship.

That it's full of unpredictability and wonderful things, but also risk and the possibility of getting hurt and insecurities and two entities that are both, in some ways flawed. You know, obviously you could an, you could argue that Samantha has a lot more raw capabilities than Theodore, but even in some ways she's flawed.

She doesn't have a body. She can't relate to humanity quite on the same level as as a human can. And of course that [00:30:00] ultimately means that she leaves the planet in terms of falling in love. I think the film also does a nice job of showing just how much falling in love is this sense of radical openness and safety where a person just feels comfortable expressing anything they want to, uh, to the person that they're falling in love with, because at that point in the relationship.

There's no risk, there's no baggage perhaps. I mean, I mean, what I should say is there's no perception of risk and no perception of baggage. There are both of those things, but when you're falling in love, those kinds of things aren't at the front of our perceptions. Actually. We tend to idealize the person that's that's we're falling in love with and think they may be the answer to all of our problems, and it's very hard to see the downsides of the relationship or the person we're falling in love with.

And so that generates the sense of openness. Expressivity and safety, and we see that really clearly with Theodore and Samantha as they start to fall in love. And of course, the other [00:31:00] thing that the film says about falling in love is that we really need less to fall in love than we think when we're on our dating quest and we're trying to find the quote unquote perfect partner.

You know, it's commonly talked about in the culture nowadays about how people are just looking for lists and lists of. Of characteristics for people to fulfill. They have to be this tall, make this much money, have this color, eyes, have this kind of family and so on. This film shows that your partner doesn't even necessarily have to have a body, and you could also see this film as a quite a good metaphor for a long distance relationship.

Of course, a lot of people are in long distance relationships and sometimes for years, and they manage to keep it going even though obviously it can be difficult. Really, what we need to fall in love. As suggested by this film, and I think it's right, is we need someone to be curious about us, to be charitable towards us, to want to know us and to be emotionally [00:32:00] invested in us, and then for us to feel the same way about them.

And I think those are probably something like the, the minimum necessary conditions to fall in love. And it is surprising that at least as it shown in this film, our body is perhaps non-essential. But I think on an emotional level, I, I certainly think it gets that right, that we just need the sense that someone cares about us and is curious and invested.

And if we can feel the same way, that's an amazing foundation for, for people to fall in love with each other. And I think the last thing that this firm has to say about love is that the human brain at least seems to love in quite a possessive way. So when Samantha reveals to Theodore that. Actually she has 641 other AI romantic partners.

He's quite taken aback by that in that he's gonna have difficulty handling it, and that's showing that with, with human beings, we don't necessarily naturally love in a kind [00:33:00] of purely altruistic, non possessive way. Romantic love often comes hand in hand with possessiveness and jealousy, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

You know, there are important. There are important evolutionary reasons why people have experienced possessiveness and jealousy in the context of romantic relationships. Some people may be in the non-monogamy space, might argue that feelings of jealousy are something to be transcended, but I'm not necessarily convinced by that argument.

But yes, by Samantha evolving into this kind of transcendent entity, we're gonna have lots and lots of connections. With lots and lots of other entities. What that puts into shop relief is that the human brain, US primates, we're still pretty possessive and we still have quite a high capacity for jealousy.

And again, I think that jealousy can serve useful functions and people you know, and helps probably to keep a lot of relationships together, even though [00:34:00] it's kind of a negative, unpleasant emotion. In terms of what this film got wrong, psychologically, I tried to think about it. I couldn't come up with very much.

The only thing I would've thought was that I think Theodore would've ultimately had more reservations about dating someone without a body than he ultimately did in the film. Now, it could have been the case that Samantha simply evolved too quick for Theodore to have these reservations. You know, it looks like this film takes place over a month's long time period.

It's totally possible that if Samantha was happy to continue with, uh, the relationship with Theodore, that eventually this would have gotten in the way. So, funnily enough, in a film that's very fantastical in lots of ways, it really did strike me as very realistic. And again, I think that that's why the film is so effective.

It feels like it could happen or it did happen, or it will happen in in the near future. And of course, we'll discuss this a little bit when we get to cultural commentary. [00:35:00] And I don't have a lot to say about what the movie gets wrong psychologically. I think it's pretty on point for the most part. My favorite quote is by Amy Adams character Amy, when she says, 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. In terms of the cultural commentary this film has to offer, of course, we see throughout the film in lots of different scenarios, people outsourcing their, their emotional needs and emotional demands. Commodifying things like relationships com, compartmentalizing everything, and there's lots of different examples.

There are simple examples like. Theodore before going on a date with, uh, Olivia Wild Googles, her or she, and, you know, he and Samantha Google her and again, come up with this list of characteristics. She does this job, she has this hobby, et [00:36:00] cetera. And that's an example of how people tend to commodify people that they're going to be going on dates with.

We have Theodore's, uh, phone, sex hall with, with a total stranger. Where they have this really weird phone sex, and then immediately after the woman orgasms, she hung, hangs up the phone. And that's showing how often people are really compartmentalizing their sex lives, put their sex life over here into phone sex, or perhaps pornography or OnlyFans or stuff like that, and relationships stuff and emotional stuff that's over here.

That's a separate relationship. And in terms of outsourcing, of course. The people that Theodore works for are people who are in romantic relationships, and they're hiring Theodore to to write their love letters for them. So people are often uncomfortable expressing themselves emotionally, and it seems like a bit of a hassle.

So I'm not gonna do it at all. I'm not gonna outsource it to this guy. [00:37:00] Theodore. He's gonna do all of my, uh, emotional expression for me. And of course, I'm, I'm sure a lot of people are outsourcing the writing of their love letters as well as their emails and things like that to, to chat GBT and other l lms.

So that struck me as, you know, really poignant. Of course, of course, this firm is saying a lot about how vulnerable people are to becoming attached to technology, and even though LLMs like chat, GBT. Uh, nowhere near as sophisticated as Samantha is in the film, we already have numerous case reports of people becoming attached to AI software forming relationships with AI software, even in some cases, uh, getting married to their chat bot.

And I'll put a link to a Guardian article in the description where, which sites Some examples of this, you know, I've often talked about on the podcast, how. Strengths and weaknesses aren't often separate things, but the strengths and weaknesses are often two sides of the same [00:38:00] coin. So in the case of humanity, one of humanity's biggest strengths is our ability and tendency to form social relationships.

If you read the book, sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari talks about how what makes humans so successful is the fact that we can socialize form connections and collaborate in large numbers. But this strength. Also implies an underlying weakness, which is we, we don't just have the capability to form social relationships.

We have the vulnerability to form social relationships. We need social relationships, and we can almost become tricked. Deceived into forming social relationships, even with things which aren't conscious like chat. GPT as long as chat, GPT can convincingly enough imitate a human. However, imperfectly people will be vulnerable to forming relationships with these things, and sometimes that causes consequences, which are quite mundane.

Like, you know, I [00:39:00] talk to my chat bot too much when I should be interacting with humans. Sometimes it can have, you know, more serious and dire consequences as well when you hear about perhaps suicides linked to LLMs or people marrying their chatbots, things like that. And I think the last piece of cultural commentary I'd want to mention is this film really just shows how quickly people adapt to new technologies.

Even when the changes are really radical. So within the few months time span that, that this film takes place over, we have AI operating systems being introduced. We have people falling in love with them, forming friendships with them. Uh, and this is really nicely illustrated by Chris Pratt's character, Theodore's friend, where.

After Theodore announces to him that he's formed a relationship with Samantha, he just gets it straight away. He's not skeptical. He is like, oh yeah, you, you've, you're in a relationship with a operating system. You should go on a double date with me and my girlfriend. It'll be [00:40:00] great. And I think that's so nicely captures how Wendy's radical technologies come on the scene.

There's this initial, oh shit moment. Followed quickly by acceptance so quickly. And again, I think that's a strength of being human that we can adapt to to new things pretty easily. But I also think it's a vulnerability of being human because things can really sneak up on us because we become climatized to very radical changes so quickly.

An example of that in the real world is the smartphone where. Before 2011, smartphones are comparatively rare. 2011, 2012 hits. All of a sudden everyone has a smartphone. And now we just take it for granted fully to the point where, you know, we're in a position to be exploited and, and real harm can come to people by, by virtue of the use of this technology.

In terms of practical takeaways you can get from this film, I think the [00:41:00] first one is, and. In terms of practical takeaways for this film, I think the first one is technology is really, really ramping up and we're seeing this all the time. Again, AI has not reached the level of sophistication of Samantha in this film, but clearly there's a lot of progress being made.

We need to be prepared for what's going to happen. Things are gonna radically change, I think, interpersonally in terms of, uh, economics, in terms of what people do for a living, how people have relationships. If this is all gonna change, I can't really be more specific than that because totally outside of this field, I don't know what's going to happen.

But I do think we need to start at least mentally preparing ourselves and doing everything we can to prepare for some form of radical change. And I think perhaps one of the best ways to be prepared is to double down on what makes us human to double down on relationships with each other in person, on [00:42:00] skills that.

Perhaps only a human being can do or portray that another human might appreciate on living a life that's not totally dependent on technology, but has some form of independence from technology as well. Psychologically, this film instructs us to learn about our coping strategies and patterns and learn some alternative ways of dealing with our problems.

So in Theo's case. He only does, he only had one tool in his arsenal for dealing with his relationship problems, and that was withdrawing, repressing, running away, maintaining emotional distance. He had to gradually through his good enough relationship with Samantha, learn some alternative ways, mature, get out of his comfort zone, and I think that's, that's the really big takeaway from this movie.

We can't just rely on one coping strategy in terms of how we. Deal with other people. If we are totally conflict avoidant, we need to [00:43:00] learn to start having conflict. If we default to conflict and maybe anger and maybe persecuting our partner, we need to learn perhaps the opposite. Maybe some empathy, some curiosity, some connection.

But whatever your coping strategies are, it's always good to try and expand them, uh, and make them a little bit more sophisticated. Another takeaway from this movie, I think, again, another paradox shown to us by this movie is that good relationships should encourage both parties to grow. Samantha and Theodore both grow within this relationship for different reasons, but sometimes growth can cause a relationship to end, and this is what happens when Samantha continues to grow and grow and grow past the point where.

The relationship is feasible. So good relationship should encourage both parties to grow, but sometimes growth can cause unfortunately, a relationship to end. And this is the tragic note that this movie ends on. The last [00:44:00] takeaway is I think everyone in their relationship should think about this idea of constructed compatibility.

So this is actually an idea that was discussed by Paul Eastwick, a relationship psychologist. Who we had on the podcast recently, and he said one of the things that people do in relationships is they construct their own compatibility. We often think that people are either inherently compatible or inherently incompatible.

Paul says, the science does not show that to be true at all. Actually, what couples do is they often construct their compatibility through things like shared culture, focusing on the similarities, minimizing the differences, and really constructing between them as story of This is why, you know, I love you.

This is why you love me, this is why our relationship works, et cetera, et cetera. We actually see this in the film. There's a point where Samantha says, you know, and Samantha's worried about not being [00:45:00] human. That's her core in security. And she tells Theodore, you know, even though you're human and I'm not, we're we're all made out of matter.

So in that respect, we're at the very least the same. And that's a beautiful example of how someone can, you know, rethink, reframe certain aspects of their relationship to actually improve connectivity. Then I don't think it's a coincidence that when Samantha becomes independent of Matter, when she and the other AI upgrade themselves such that they no longer need physical hardware to run, that's actually when their relationship no longer becomes feasible and their relationship ends at that point.

If I had to think about who the psychologically healthiest person in this movie is, I think it's a little bit unfair, but I'm gonna give that to Chris Pratt's character Paul. Just because he seems like the most easygoing, takes everything in his stride. He adapts to Theodore's [00:46:00] new situation, dating and AI really easily.

He doesn't get insecure about it. In terms of his own relationship, he seems to go with the flow. I think it's probably unfair because Paul seems like one of those people who's naturally very, not too emotionally sensitive and happy go lucky, but he seems to be the character in the film who has, you know.

The psychologically healthiest relationship with himself and the people around him. Although I would say, you know, we don't get to know him very well, and it's possible that if we got to know him better, we might see much darker things. How would I rate this movie overall, just as a film, I should say? Of course, I'm not a film critic and I have no expertise but.

Film criticism has much less, uh, responsibility than psychiatry or psychotherapy. So I'm quite happy to shoot from the hip and give my opinion on this. I'm gonna give this film a four Outta five, and I, I love it because it's quite, quite beautiful, has wonderful set pieces, great [00:47:00] acting, a really simple story with a great punchline that's very effective.

Has a lot to say about our culture, and very, very realistic. As I said before. I'm gonna give it a four out of five because it's actually not as re watchable as I thought. So I watched this film back in 2013 and didn't watch it since until I watched it a couple of days ago to do this. And normally when there's that much of a gap, 12 years between, uh, one viewing and another, there's a ton of stuff that, that I, that I would've missed the first time or just forgot about.

And funnily enough, I didn't get that with this film when I watched this film, even though I could still really appreciate it. I didn't feel like. The second viewing added that much, and so for that reason alone, I'm gonna give it a four outta five, not a five, outta five. How would I rate this film in terms of psychological accuracy?

I actually think, again, even though it's a sci-fi, even though it's quite fantastical, even though it's a future we're not quite at yet. [00:48:00] I'm gonna give it the 4.5 outta five. To me, it came across as really realistic. And if you take for granted that there is technology out there like Samantha and other oss, I think this is a really realistic, uh, portrayal of how things could turn out.

I hope you enjoyed discussing this film with me. I definitely enjoyed getting to learn about it and see what are the psychological layers beneath this movie. As I said before, the first time I watched it, it was before I knew anything about psychology. So one thing I was able to appreciate on the second viewing is that there is a lot of psychological depth here.

Would love to hear your feedback on these kinds of film analysis episodes. As I said, my plan is to try and do one of these a month. I'd love to hear what you think, what I got wrong, what I got right, where you agree or disagree. If there's any particular films that you think have a lot of psychological import that, uh, [00:49:00] you'd like us to discuss, just check out the description and you can follow us on social media or check out our email, and that's a way you can get those suggestions to us.

As always, thank you very much for listening, and we'll see you here next time.