My favorite AI movie still gives me all the feels — and you can stream it now on Prime Video
From "Blade Runner" to "Ex Machina," from "The Matrix" movies to "The Terminator" franchise, artificial intelligence has played a significant — and increasingly prescient — role in some of cinema's best science-fiction stories.
And though AI often manifests on the big screen as futuristic robots haunting horror-thrillers or simulated realities trying to control humans in dystopian futures, one sci-fi favorite offers up an unexpectedly human response to the rise of hyper-intelligent machines: love.
Yes, in the 2013 AI romance "Her" — written, co-produced and directed by Spike Jonze — Joaquin Phoenix's character Theodore Twombly encounters and ends up falling for an artificially intelligent operating system named Samantha, a connection that highlights both the emotional and ethical complexities of human-AI relationships. (And when said system is sultrily voiced by Scarlett Johansson, honestly, who can blame him?)
"Her" is a refreshingly warm and emotional addition to a genre that so often skews austere and merciless. Now that it's streaming on Prime Video, here's why you should add the sweet sci-fi romance to your watch list.
"Her" follows Theodore Twombly (Phoenix), a lonely and introverted writer working at beautifullyhandwrittenletters.com (a greeting card company that hires professional scribes to write love notes for other people) and living in near-future Los Angeles.
Reeling from his impending divorce from his childhood sweetheart, Catherine Klausen (Rooney Mara), Theodore purchases a copy of OS¹, an artificially intelligent operating system that's designed to adapt and evolve according to the user's interactions.
The OS adopts a feminine voice and persona, named Samantha (Johansson); soon, the two bond during their discussions on love, loss and life and, following an unexpected verbal sexual encounter, embark on a romantic relationship.
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And though some of Theo's friends, such as empathetic neighbor Amy (Amy Adams), understand and even legitimize the unlikely romance, not everyone in his orbit is quite so tolerant about his new significant other, with those closest to him questioning his capacity for forging real human connections. And those objections join a list of other complications, from the physical limitations of their partnership to Samantha's growing personal ambitions.
Exploring consciousness, connection, identity, isolation and morality through Theodore and Samantha's man-meets-machine romance, "Her" packs a lot of thematic and emotional depth into an otherwise familiar "rom-com" framework.
A moving and melancholic lead performance by Joaquin Phoenix (who earned a Golden Globe Best Actor nomination for the role) and truly exceptional voice work by Scarlett Johansson — who manages to make a bodiless machine not only feel sentient but soulful, spirited and downright sexy — render the core relationship utterly believable and heartbreakingly human.
One of Spike Jonze's finest movies to date and an unabashedly beating-heart entry into the director's thought-provoking filmography ("Being John Malkovich", "Adaptation"), "Her" nabbed five Academy Award nominations, including "Best Picture" and "Best Production Design", and rightfully earned Jonze a "Best Original Screenplay" win for his inventive and intelligent story.
On Rotten Tomatoes, where the dramedy boasts an impressive 95% rating, critics praised Jonze's film as "sweet, soulful, and smart," savvily using "its just-barely-sci-fi scenario to impart wryly funny wisdom about the state of modern human relationships."
Altogether, "Her" is just like the machine at its tender heart: a wonderfully weird, often funny, unexpectedly romantic and deeply human tale about the extremes people will go to find connection and recognition in the other.
Sure, you may never fall in love with a computer the way Theodore does in the film, but in an increasingly tech-obsessed world, you can certainly understand and sympathize with the impulse.
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