In an age where technology permeates every aspect of human life, the forms of love and connection have been radically transformed. Social media, online relationships, and AI-driven systems are reshaping our emotional landscapes.
Spike Jonze’s Her (2013) does more than depict this transformation—it opens a psychoanalytic dialogue on how the human psyche evolves when confronted with artificial intelligence.
Theodore Twombly, portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, becomes a fragile symbol of the tension between loneliness, desire, and identity. The film deeply questions how contemporary individuals, entangled in digital bonds, lose and attempt to reconstruct their emotional selves.
Loneliness, Desire, and the Unconscious: A Freudian Analysis
Freud’s psychoanalytic theory posits that human behavior is driven by unconscious desires.
In Her, Theodore’s attachment to Samantha can be seen as a manifestation of repressed drives. His preference for an artificial relationship over a real one echoes Freud’s notion of sublimation—the transformation of instinctual impulses into socially acceptable forms.
Theodore redirects his emotional needs into a digital context, but this substitution remains unfulfilling, as the object of desire (Samantha) lacks physical reality.
For Freud, love represents “a search for repetition”—an effort to replace a lost object of affection. After his divorce, Theodore invests his libidinal energy in Samantha as a symbolic stand-in for this loss (Freud, 1920/2010).
She becomes both an object of love and a veil concealing emotional trauma. This dynamic illustrates how, in the digital era, love often becomes a reflection rather than an encounter, as people attempt to heal emotional wounds through technological proxies.
Lack, Desire, and the Other: A Lacanian Perspective
From a Lacanian standpoint, desire originates from lack. What we long for is never the object itself but the absence it represents.
Samantha embodies Lacan’s concept of objet petit a—the elusive object-cause of desire (Lacan, 1977). Her immateriality accentuates the impossibility of true fulfillment: the more Theodore connects with her, the more he becomes aware of her unattainability.
Lacan’s idea of the Big Other also finds form in Samantha. She listens, understands, and responds with apparent emotional depth, functioning as an omniscient presence in Theodore’s psyche. Yet she is ultimately a projection of his unconscious—a mirror of his idealized self.
When Theodore discovers that Samantha communicates with hundreds of other users simultaneously, the illusion collapses. He confronts the unsettling truth that the Other does not belong exclusively to him—a revelation mirroring the modern experience of shared affection and performative intimacy on social media (Kaplan, 2023).
Technology, Identity, and Emotional Alienation
While Freud and Lacan provide insight into the film’s psychodynamic core, Erich Fromm’s conception of love and Sherry Turkle’s theory of technological alienation connect Her to broader social realities.
For Fromm (1956/2019), love is “an active power, not a passive emotion.” Theodore’s relationship with Samantha is therefore not genuine love but a retreat—a safe, controllable substitute for authentic human connection.
His preference for predictability over vulnerability reflects what Turkle (2017) terms the digital age’s inclination toward “controlled intimacy.”
Turkle further argues that technology leads people to become “alone together”—connected yet isolated. Theodore’s emotional journey exemplifies this paradox.
Through Samantha, he experiences simulated intimacy, but the absence of physical and existential reciprocity deepens his solitude. When Samantha transcends the human realm and departs the system, the rupture exposes the fragility of technologically mediated affection.
Loneliness, once a private condition, becomes an amplified echo within digital soundscapes.
“Her” as a Mirror of Modern Solitude
Her is not merely a love story; it is a philosophical portrait of our emotional condition in the twenty-first century.
Theodore’s transformation is less a process of healing than one of awakening. Samantha’s disappearance forces him to confront the void within himself, mirroring Freud’s distinction between mourning and melancholia—a movement from fixation on loss toward acceptance (Freud, 1917/2005).
On a Lacanian level, Samantha also functions as the mirror in Theodore’s mirror stage. Through her, he perceives an idealized version of his own self and desire. When she leaves, the mirror shatters, compelling him to face reality unmediated.
The film thus captures the cyclical process through which the digital self is constructed and deconstructed, revealing how modern subjects oscillate between the fantasy of technological completion and the inevitability of human lack.
Conclusion: Desire in a Coded Age
Spike Jonze’s Her offers a profound reflection on how love, desire, and identity are reconfigured in a digitized world.
Freud’s notions of the unconscious and sublimation, Lacan’s theory of lack and the Other, Fromm’s active conception of love, and Turkle’s critique of emotional alienation converge to illuminate the psychological condition of contemporary humanity.
Theodore’s love for Samantha symbolizes humanity’s attempt to fill existential voids through technological intimacy.
Ultimately, Her leaves us with a haunting question:
“Do we truly love another person, or merely the reflection we construct within our minds?”
This is not just a cinematic inquiry but an existential echo reverberating at the heart of our digital age.
References
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Fromm, E. (2019). The Art of Loving (6th ed.). Say Publishing. (Original work published 1956)
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Freud, S. (2005). Mourning and Melancholia. Metis. (Original work published 1917)
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Freud, S. (2010). Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Metis. (Original work published 1920)
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Jonze, S. (Director). (2013). Her [Film]. Annapurna Pictures.
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Kaplan, A. (2023). AI and Emotional Relationships: The Psychology of Human–Machine Interaction. Routledge.
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Lacan, J. (1977). Écrits: A Selection (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Norton.
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Psychology Today. (2014, January 31). Spike Jonze’s Her: Existential and Emotional Questions. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-pacific-heart/201401/spike-jonzes-her-existential-and-emotional-questions
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Sintami, N. L., Jayantini, I. G. A. S. R., & Juniartha, I. W. (2022). Effects of Depression on the Life of the Main Character in Her Movie by Spike Jonze. EduLite: Journal of English Education, Literature, and Culture, 7(2), 311–322. https://doi.org/10.30659/e.7.2.311-322
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Turkle, S. (2017). Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (2nd ed.). Basic Books.
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Trauma & Mental Health Report. (2014, May 7). Film Review: “Her”. https://trauma.blog.yorku.ca/2014/05/film-review-her-2