Digital Relationships In The Movie Her

With the recent popularity of social media, online relationships have been becoming more popular. The movie Her, directed by Spike Jonze, follows the relationship of a writer and his operating system. Many aspects of this relationship mirror those of strictly online relationships, aside from the large difference that the operating systems do not have a real person behind their thoughts and words. Throughout the movie Her and through Theodore’s relationship with Samantha, Jonze emphasizes the downfalls of having a relationship solely through technology, with a lack of physical connection.
In the movie Her, the protagonist Theodore develops an intimate relationship with his operating system, which has a female voice and has named itself Samantha. Their relationship evolves, from starting off …show more content…
While being in a digital relationship typically makes for a hopeless relationship, these relationships are not the online ones that could fail; a relationship between two people in person could easily result in a failure. If these two people are in a digital relationship and they lack an additional connection along with physical closeness, it is most likely that the combination of these lacks of connection contributed to unsuccessfulness of the relationship. This is made startlingly clear with both Theodore and Catherine’s relationship as well as Paul and Amy’s relationship. Both of these relationships contain both physical and mental connections, but despite this, they crumble and fall and end in divorces. Most relationships need determination, dedication, and a mental and physical connection to thrive. For most couples, especially those solely online, without one or more of these aspects, the relationship is