“You’re dating your computer?”
What if a relationship with an AI could be the most real thing in your life? Join us—Pete Wright and Andy Nelson—as we continue the Thinking Machines series with a conversation about "Her." Writer-director Spike Jonze's only solo original screenplay arrives in a near-future Los Angeles where Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore Twombly, a man who writes intimate letters for strangers and falls in love with his AI operating system, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Released before conversational AI felt genuinely capable, the film has grown more relevant with every passing year.
We dig into what makes this the series' emotional pivot—the first Thinking Machines film where humanity reaches toward the AI rather than recoiling from it. We unpack how quickly the OS onboarding sequence becomes something warmer than a setup routine; the sharp parallel between Theodore's letter-writing and Amy Adams's character's documentary filmmaking—both manufacturing emotional experience for others while keeping their own at arm's length; and the craft choices that make the world feel intimate rather than futuristic, from Hoyte van Hoytema's blue-purging cinematography to the story of how Johansson replaced Samantha Morton in the voice role after production fully wrapped. We also bring the conversation into the present: the ChatGPT voice controversy, AI as therapeutic tool, and the laws already being drafted to define what an AI can and cannot be to a person.
We have a great time talking about it, so check it out then tune in. The Next Reel—when the movie ends, our conversation begins!
If You Liked This, Try: Adaptation | Being John Malkovich (Charlie Kaufman series)
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