Her (2013)

Her (2013)

From Verbal Diorama by Verbal Diorama

April 23, 2026 · 53 min · Season 8 · Episode 340

About this episode

This episode explores the themes of love and intimacy in Spike Jonze's film 'Her' and its relevance to contemporary society.

This AIpril, what is love, if not AI persevering? Spike Jonze's Her asks that question with such sincerity and precision that it never feels like a provocation; it feels like it's holding up a mirror to today's society. Her has become of one of the most quietly radical and prophetic films of the 21st century: a love story with no villain, no third act betrayal, just the aching reality of two beings in love, but evolving at different speeds. Released in 2013, Her imagined AI companions with emotional intelligence, fluid personalities, and an unsettling capacity to outgrow the humans who depend on them, years before anyone had heard of a large language model. But Her was never really about technology. It was about loneliness, intimacy, and the stories we tell ourselves about connection. From Jonze's years-long development of the script, rooted in the breakdown of his own marriage, and an early-2000s encounter with primitive chatbot technology, to the radical decision to recast Samantha Morton with Scarlett Johansson deep into post-production, this is the story of how a film in the 2010s about artificial intimacy became about actual intimacy in the 2020s. ‘I felt pure, unconditional…

People in this episode

Host: Verbal Diorama

Topics covered

  • artificial intelligence
  • love
  • loneliness
  • intimacy
  • film analysis
  • 21st century cinema

Keywords

  • Her
  • Spike Jonze
  • artificial intelligence
  • love story
  • loneliness
  • intimacy
  • Samantha Morton
  • Scarlett Johansson

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The Guardian

Books & works: Her

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