Red is human; Her is Red

Amazon Prime Video captions Her (2013), directed by Spike Jonze, as “a love story that explores evolving nature & risks in modern world.”

The cinematography and plot of Her are incredible through its utilization of color. One in particular is red. The outfits of Theodore are red, office interior accents are red, and even Samantha, voiced by Scarlett Johansson, had a red booting screen. Red in cinema typically finds itself symbolizing blood, desire, and love. But, arguably, red has the potential to signify what it means to be human and also what we innately seek in companionship when faced with solitude.

There has been an ongoing debate on what makes humans, well, human, which separates us from other living organisms and keeps us from being programmable. But Samantha seemed to have broken that barrier. The film highlights that A.I., as sentient beings, are so obviously machines because of their voices: lack of mannerisms, vocal microexpressions, etc. But Samantha and other OS systems have that built-in in addition to being an intellectually improved Eliza with an infinite capacity to evolve. The cinematic choices made with DP Hoyte Van Hoytema’s influence on the film focused on close-ups that captured human expression, facial aging, and emotion-triggered micro-expressions.

I personally rooted for Samantha and Theodore. Evaluating the other human-to-human relationships, there was a disconnect. Right off the bat, Amy and Charlie’s relationship had red flags when he lectured her about ways to “fix” her documentary. Even Catherine’s good points are potentially romanticized from the perspective of Theodore, but their face-to-face interaction makes their differences evident. Samantha was too perfect to be true.

Throughout most of the film, Theodore can be seen wearing red when he longs for romantic love, but there are times when he doesn’t. He didn’t wear red at his goddaughter’s birthday or when meeting with Catherine, and he didn’t even wear red on his blind date.

Did the meaning of red, like Samantha, continue to evolve with the film? What could the other colors accented throughout the film symbolize?

Does Samantha prove that humans with their “uniqueness” can be coded?

Her poses interesting questions regarding how intertwined we want A.I. to be in our lives as the film never tried to hide the fact that Samantha was an OS and rather made it extremely evident that she wasn’t organic.