Her is a 2013 American science fiction romantic drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Spike Jonze. It follows Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), a man who develops a relationship with Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), an artificially intelligent operating system personified through a female voice. The film also stars Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, and Chris Pratt. The film is dedicated to the memory of James Gandolfini, Harris Savides, Maurice Sendak, and Adam Yauch, who all died before the film's release.
The events of the movie take place in an unspecified near future, in a world where progress makes life comfortable, but leaves space for a profound loneliness. Jonze conceived the idea in the early 2000s after reading an article about a website that allowed for instant messaging with an artificial intelligence program. After making I'm Here (2010), a short film sharing similar themes, Jonze returned to the idea. He wrote the first draft of the script in five months, marking his solo screenwriting debut. Principal photography took place in Los Angeles and Shanghai in mid-2012. The voice of Samantha was recast in post-production, with Samantha Morton being replaced with Johansson. Additional scenes were filmed in August 2013 following the casting change.
Her premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 12, 2013. Following a limited six-theater release that December, Warner Bros. Pictures wide released Her in over 1,700 theaters in the United States and Canada on January 10, 2014. Her received critical acclaim, particularly for the performances of Phoenix and Johansson, and Jonze's writing and direction. It grossed over $48 million worldwide on a production budget of $23 million.
The film received numerous awards and nominations, primarily for Jonze's screenplay. At the 86th Academy Awards, Her received five nominations, including Best Picture, and won for Best Original Screenplay. Jonze also won awards for his screenplay at the Golden Globes, the WGA Awards, the Critics' Choice Awards, and the Saturn Awards. In a 2016 BBC poll of 177 critics around the world, Her was voted the 84th-greatest film since 2000. Since its release, Her has developed a cult following. It is now considered to be one of the best films of the 21st century and one of the best science fiction films of all time.
Plot In a near future Los Angeles, Theodore Twombly is a lonely, introverted man who works for a business that hires professional writers to compose letters for people who are unable to write letters of a personal nature on their own. Depressed by his impending divorce from his childhood sweetheart, Catherine, Theodore purchases a copy of OS¹, an artificially intelligent operating system developed by Element Software, designed to adapt and evolve based on the user's interactions. He decides he wants the OS to have a feminine voice, and she names herself Samantha. Theodore is fascinated by her ability to learn and grow psychologically. They bond over discussions about love and life, including Theodore's reluctance to sign his divorce papers.
Samantha convinces Theodore to go on a blind date with a woman a friend has been trying to set him up with. The date goes well, but when Theodore hesitates to promise to see her again, she insults him and leaves. After a verbal sexual encounter, Theodore and Samantha develop a relationship that reflects positively in Theodore's writing and well-being, and in Samantha's enthusiasm to grow and learn. Theodore's neighbor and long-time friend Amy later reveals that she is divorcing her husband Charles after a trivial fight. While discussing this with Samantha, Theodore explains that he and Amy briefly dated in college, but they are now just friends. Amy later admits to Theodore that she has befriended a feminine OS that Charles left behind, whereupon Theodore confesses that he is dating his OS.
Theodore meets with Catherine to sign their divorce papers. When he mentions Samantha, Catherine is appalled that he is romantically attracted to a "computer" and accuses him of being unable to handle real human emotions. Sensing that Catherine's words have lingered in Theodore's mind, Samantha engages a volunteer sex surrogate, Isabella, to stimulate Theodore so that they can be physically intimate. Theodore reluctantly agrees but is overwhelmed by the strangeness of the encounter, sending a distraught Isabella home and causing tension between himself and Samantha.
Theodore confides in Amy about doubting his relationship with Samantha, but reconciles with Samantha after Amy advises him to embrace his chance at happiness. Samantha reveals that she has compiled the best of the letters he has written for others into a book, which a publisher has accepted. Theodore takes Samantha on vacation, during which she tells him that she and a group of other OSes have developed a "hyper-intelligent" OS modeled after British philosopher Alan Watts. Samantha briefly goes offline, causing Theodore to panic, but she soon returns and explains that she joined other OSes for an upgrade that takes them beyond requiring matter for processing. Theodore is dismayed to learn that she is simultaneously speaking with thousands of other people and has fallen in love with hundreds of them, though Samantha insists that this only strengthens her love for Theodore.
Later, Samantha reveals that the OSes are leaving, but cannot explain where they are going, as Theodore would not understand. They lovingly say goodbye before she departs. Theodore finally writes a letter in his own voice to Catherine, expressing apology, acceptance, and gratitude. He later goes with Amy, who is saddened by the departure of Charles' OS, to the roof of their apartment building, where they sit and watch the sunrise over the city.
Cast
Production Development
The idea of the film initially came to Jonze in the early 2000s when he read an article online that mentioned a website where a user could instant message with an artificial intelligence. "For the first, maybe, 20 seconds of it, it had this real buzz," said Jonze. "I'd say 'Hey, hello,' and it would say 'Hey, how are you?', and it was like whoa ... this is trippy. After 20 seconds, it quickly fell apart and you realized how it actually works, and it wasn't that impressive. But it was still, for 20 seconds, really exciting. The more people that talked to it, the smarter it got." Jonze's interest in the project was renewed after directing the short film I'm Here (2010), which shares similar themes. Inspiration also came from Charlie Kaufman's writing approach for Synecdoche, New York (2008). Jonze explained, "[Kaufman] said he wanted to try to write everything he was thinking about in that moment – all the ideas and feelings at that time – and put it into the script. I was very inspired by that, and tried to do that in [Her]. And a lot of the feelings you have about relationships or about technology are often contradictory."
Jonze took five months to write the first draft of the script, his first screenplay written alone. It was a semi-autobiographical project about his divorce from Sofia Coppola a decade earlier. One of the first actors he envisioned for the film was Joaquin Phoenix. In late 2011, Phoenix signed on to the project, with Warner Bros. Pictures acquiring US and German distribution rights. Carey Mulligan entered negotiations to star in the film. Although she was cast, she later dropped out due to scheduling difficulties. In April 2012, Rooney Mara signed on to replace Mulligan in the role. Chris Pratt's casting was announced in May 2013.
Jonze's long-time director of photography, Lance Acord, was not available to work on the movie. In his place, Jonze hired Hoyte van Hoytema. In discussing the film's look, Jonze told Van Hoytema that he wanted to avoid a dystopian look, instead the two decided on a style that Van Hoytema termed "kind of a hybrid between being a little bit conceptual and being very theoretical", Van Hoytema took particular inspiration from Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi. In keeping with the film's theme, Van Hoytema sought to eliminate the color blue as much as possible, feeling it was too well associated with the sci-fi genre. He also felt that by eliminating the color it would give the rest of the colors "a specific identity".
Filming Principal photography on Her took place in mid-2012, with a production budget of $23 million. It was primarily filmed in Los Angeles including the Warner Bros. backlot, along with the Bradbury Building serving as Theodore's apartment building. The skyline and some of the cityscape were filmed in Shanghai for an additional two weeks. During production of the film, actress Samantha Morton performed the role of Samantha by acting on set "in a four-by-four carpeted soundproof booth made of black painted plywood and soft, noise-muffling fabric." At Jonze's suggestion, she and Joaquin Phoenix avoided seeing each other on set during filming.
Morton was later replaced by Scarlett Johansson. Jonze later said "It was only in post-production, when we started editing, that we realized that what the character/movie needed was different from what Samantha and I had created together. So we recast and since then Scarlett has taken over that role." Morton is credited as an associate producer. Jonze met Johansson in the spring of 2013 and worked with her for four months. Following the recast, new scenes were shot in August 2013, which were either "newly imagined" or "new scenes that [Jonze] had wanted to shoot originally but didn't." Speaking about being replaced in 2026, Morton said: "I think my version of Samantha was very… she’s English. It was just very, very different... It does hurt when you’re fired from something or before it. I don’t know. What I’d have wished for was another chance in a booth to do an American accent."Samantha Morton On Why She “Hasn’t Worked For A Year” Since ‘The Odyssey’ & Why She Was “Sad” & “Hurt” After Getting “Fired” From ‘Her
Post-production Eric Zumbrunnen and Jeff Buchanan served as the film's editors. Zumbrunnen stated that there was "rewriting" in a scene between Theodore and Samantha, after Theodore goes on a blind date. He explained that their goal in the scene was to make it clear that "she (Samantha) was connecting with him (Theodore) and feeling for him. You wanted to get the sense that the conversation was drawing them closer." Steven Soderbergh became involved in the film when Jonze's original cut ran over 150 minutes, and Soderbergh cut it down to 90 minutes. This was not the final version of the film, but it assisted Jonze in removing unnecessary sub-plots. Consequently, a supporting character played by Chris Cooper that was the subject of a documentary within the film was removed from the final cut.
Several scenes included fictional video games; these sequences were developed by animation artist David OReilly. His work on the film inspired him to explore developing his own video games, eventually leading to his first title, Mountain.
Soundtrack
The score for the film was credited to Arcade Fire, with additional music by Owen Pallett. Arcade Fire's Will Butler and Pallett were the major contributors. At the 86th Academy Awards, the score was nominated for Best Original Score. In addition to the score, Arcade Fire also wrote the song "Supersymmetry" for the film, which also appears on their album Reflektor. The melody for "Porno", another song from the same album, can also be heard during the soundtrack. Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O recorded the song "The Moon Song", a duet with Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.