Script To Screen: “Her”

Samantha tells Theodore she is leaving in this science fiction infused romance drama written and directed by Spike Jonze.

IMDb plot summary: In a near future, a lonely writer develops an unlikely relationship with an operating system designed to meet his every need.

Here is the scripted version of the scene:

Here is the movie version of the scene:

A beautiful, sad scene as any moment is when two lovers break up. Only in this case, it’s an AI leaving a human being.

A few notes:

• Since Spike Jonze wrote and directed the movie, it is not surprising he uses specific directing jargon (rack focus) in the script. As discussed many times, directors don’t like screenwriters overtly directing the action in a screenplay, so it is advisable not to include specific camera shots in a spec script. That is not a rule, rather an expectation on the part of script readers.
• Compare this simple line of description — Now we’re close on Theodore, still in the snowy forest — to what transpires on the screen and the depth of emotion Joaquin Phoenix conveys with his face. I suspect Jonze knew what he wanted to elicit from the actor, so he could use such a bare bit of scene description. However, if a screenwriter were writing this and they weren’t attached to direct, we’d probably add some psychological writing to convey what is transpiring in Theodore’s inner world. Such as: Theodore stands frozen in the snowy forest, a tear trickling down his face. The chilling realization his entire world is crumbling apart.

I did an analysis of Her when it came out in which I speculated that the last scene with Theodore and Amy sitting atop the roof of a downtown skyscraper was a prelude to them both jumping to their deaths. This line from Samantha — It would be hard to explain, but if you ever get there, come find me. Nothing would ever pull us apart. — leads me to believe even more that my original hunch is correct.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a Go Into The Story series where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

For more articles in the Script To Screen series, go here.