Seeking Connection

"We're both looking for something

We've been afraid to find

It's easier to be broken

It's easier to hide

Looking at you, holding my breath,

For once in my life, I'm scared to death,

I'm taking a chance, letting you inside."

- "First Time," Lifehouse

There is something inside us that craves connection. But at the same time, we often don't know how to be vulnerable, to really share ourselves with another. We want to know someone and be known, but we don't know how to go about it.

That idea is at the heart of "Her," the latest movie from Spike Jonze. It also takes a look at how the changes in technology are making that idea of connection harder.

"Her" isn't the first show or movie to look at the way technology could impact our relationships. The show "Black Mirror," which in general is about technology and its dark side for us, had a fascinating episode that mirrors the ideas in "Her." The episode "Be Right Back" is about a young couple torn apart when the husband is killed. Distraught, the wife turns to a new service that uses her dead husband's voice and his history of online activity to create an artificial intelligence entity that mimics him.

Hearing his voice again, being able to converse with him again, fills some of that hole in her heart. Eventually she even goes a step further, employing an artificial being that has been imbued with this artificial intelligence, essentially creating a shallow version of him again. For a time it brings her peace, but soon the longing for real connection returns.

That happens in "Her." Theodore Twombley (Joaquin Phoenix) endured a failed marriage and became desperate to find connection. But none was to be found, until he saw an ad for a new Operating System that incorporated the latest in artificial intelligence. In Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), he found the connection he was missing without having to engage in the world.

Sometimes I wonder if this isn't a path we're headed down with technology. One of my favorite examples is the movie "Wall-E." In that film, many people focused on the robot love story. I was more struck by the depiction of humanity, lumped together on a ship but completely isolated in their own technological worlds. I think that's a possible future for humanity, as scary as it is.

Thirty years ago, if you wanted connection, you went to the bar, a restaurant, a community event, or a service club. Or better yet, you went to church. Now, you can plug in your computer, enter a chat room, post on social media, and forge connections across the world. While some might say the connections made in person were sometimes shallow, you'd be hard pressed to say the connections made via technology are anything but shallow.

Technology is great, don't get me wrong. And in a lot of ways technology has made the world smaller, but I think it's also made us more isolated. And no matter how much we wish it would, the connections made over the Internet aren't the same, and aren't what we long for as humans.

What was fascinating about "Her" was watching Theodore struggle with this reality, and how he finally realized that what he was looking for was down the hall from him all along. All he had to do was walk out the door and connect.

I don't know if "Her" was my favorite film of the year, or even one that I will want to watch time and again. But I was struck by it's story and the deeper issues it explored. Great art pushes you to think about the world in a new way. That was certainly the case with "Her."