Her
Spike Jonze · 2013
A lonely writer in near-future Los Angeles falls in love with an AI operating system. A tender, melancholy film about connection, loneliness, and what it means to love something that exists differently than you do.
Techniques Used
4 techniques identified in this film
Color Palette as Worldbuilding
CinematographyUsing a rigorously controlled color palette throughout a film to establish the emotional and thematic register of a fictional world.
How this film uses it
Hoyte van Hoytema's cinematography bathes the entire film in warm reds, oranges, and creams — a saturated palette that makes the world feel simultaneously comforting and artificially cheerful, mirroring Theodore's emotional numbness.
Off-Screen Space
CinematographyDeliberately keeping a character or element outside the frame to use the audience's imagination, suggesting presence through sound and reaction rather than image.
How this film uses it
Samantha is never visualized — she exists only as a voice and as Theodore's reactions — which paradoxically makes her feel more present and intimate than a visible character might.
Shot-Reverse-Shot Subversion
EditingAdapting the standard conversational editing pattern (cutting between two speakers) in ways that disrupt its social normalcy.
How this film uses it
Spike Jonze shoots Theodore's conversations with Samantha in sustained single-person close-ups with no reverse — there is nothing to reverse to — making the intimacy feel real while quietly underscoring the asymmetry.
Diegetic Sound Design
SoundSound that exists within the story world used expressively to build tone or psychological texture.
How this film uses it
Arcade Fire's score and Karen O's 'The Moon Song' are written and mixed as though they exist in this world's emotional register — intimate, lo-fi, vulnerable — reinforcing Theodore's inner tenderness.
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