film studies | her

For a week, I've been depressed by Her. I cried. And I cry at everything all the time but I cried sad, sad tears in Her. I cried like it was me, and like my world was devoid of contact and interaction and was artificial, contrived, scripted, programmed. I left the theater dry-eyed but mad with sadness, mad with despair, mad with depression. 

I tried to talk to Zander. We fleshed out the film. I applauded the beautiful script. He agreed - it is sad - the relationships lost in a blink of an eye. I talked to my best friend Melanie the next day. She'd seen it over the weekend and loved it. She'd left hopeful. And id felt that - a rumble of goodness, a spark of pleasure for what comes next, but mostly I felt sad. And she didn't. But she got it. She commiserated, said the lack of human interaction hollowed her soul for those painful moments. 

But for me it was more. Her ruined me. 

And tonight, while Zan and I watched the beginning of Dirty Dancing at 1:00 in the morning, me explaining the plot (because he didn't know that penny was pregnant, and we really went to town arguing over in which decade the film is set and I was right and that was some kind of something!), and us both drinking sparkling wine and laughing at our argument and so in the moment that there wasn't a "moment" at all... Oh that. That explained it all. That cleared it all up.

There's a line in Her, and it has haunted me relentlessly. 

"Sometimes I think I have felt everything I'm ever gonna feel. And from here on out, I'm not going to feel anything new. Just lesser versions of what I've already felt." 

That, that is what killed me. That is a terrifying thought. I don't ever want to be desensitized to life. I'm terrified of feeling like I've had the best feelings already. I'm horrified that maybe that is life and maybe I've felt all the things I'm ever going to feel.

And then tonight happened. And Zan and I bantered like he'd never seen me before and just bought me a drink at a bar. And we talked about boogars and poop like we've been a we for longer than an I. And he asked me what the hell dirty dancing is really about like he cares. 

And I know right now at 2am with Zan asleep and a me strangely wide awake that I have so many more feelings to feel. I'm bursting with the feelings of have been and the ones that will be.

There's so much more to discover. 

Which, ultimately, is he's Her tells us, too.