Far gone are the days of the love letter. Going fast: the well-composed email. Say goodbye, it seems, to the politely returned text message (I’ve ghosted and been ghosted; what single person hasn’t at this point?). It’s all a bit of a new frontier, and as we plunge forth, the old ways (meeting a prospective love interest out at a bar, for example) are becoming increasingly foreign to us. (See: Vogue sex and relationship columnist Karley Sciortino’s firsthand telling of the modern-day dating experience.)
And so we go back to the grind, er, iPhone. We quite literally shop for people whose faces we like. We judge character based upon a few emoji and quippy lines. We devote ourselves to our careers, maybe. We think about getting a dog, or getting back to that cherished, yet elusive, “me” time. We hope to be set up with someone a friend is quite sure we’ll really like. We marry, sure, we do still marry. We even still move to the suburbs, studies say. But for those of us prone to abstract thinking, there’s never been a more interesting and intriguing time to be seeking intimate connection.
If dating has changed this much in the last 20 years, then where exactly are we headed? And will we like it once we get there? A recent uptick in film releases set in the future, be it far-off or familiar, directed by some of the most promising directors right now — Spike Jonze’s masterful Her, Yorgos Lanthimos’ breakout hit The Lobster, even, yes, The Hunger Games series — point to a real interest in this question. Of course, love has been a driving force of silver-screen storytelling since the first days of silent cinema. But it’s the science-fiction genre that intrigues me. Read on to see how nine sci-fi films envision love and romance in the future.
Warning: Plot spoilers ahead.
Love Is…Technological
Her (2013)
Going through a terrible divorce from his high school sweetheart, Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) purchases a talking operating system (known as an OS) with artificial intelligence, and begins to fall in love with it.
Here’s the catch: “It” is actually more of a she, and her name is Samantha. Samantha, voiced in purring tones by Scarlett Johansson, is very much sentient. She learns and remembers, she creates music, she expresses desire and feels pain, jealousy, and curiosity. As it turns out, Theodore and Samantha’s relationship is not all that peculiar — plenty of Theodore’s friends and acquaintances know people who are falling in love with their OS. This is, after all, a world where emotions, love, and intimate connections are outsourced. Samantha and Theodore’s relationship, however, progresses in a way we can all likely recognise. They flirt, tell each other secrets, take trips to the beach, go on double dates, and get into fights.
Ultimately, Samantha and Theodore’s relationship comes to an end. Samantha evolves beyond her original design and outgrows her relationship with Theodore. So it goes.
Ultimately, it is in Theodore’s relationship with Samantha that he discovers that he is capable of love in the face of terrible loss and heartbreak after all — and he discovers what it is to be truly human.
Photo: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock.
Love is…Mandatory
The Lobster(2015)
If you’ve ever heard someone sigh wistfully and say, “they just get me” in regards to their partner, then you’ve already grasped the core principle of love in the bizarre world of Greek writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster.
In the film, single people check into a hotel for a little over a month in order to find their mate. In this dystopian future, you’re coupled off based upon physical failings (myopia, nosebleeds, or an unfortunate limp, for example), lest you be transformed into an animal of your choosing. Yeah, there are a lot of dogs in this world.
Of course, you can also desert and chose to be hunted as a Loner, a group of escaped singles living off the land in the surrounding forest, each sworn to celibacy. For the hotel’s tenants, a bagged Loner buys them more time at the hotel in order to find the One.
The film’s protagonist, David (Colin Farrell), first takes a stab at the straight and narrow by convincing a heartless woman (Angeliki Papoulia) that he, too, is heartless. They feign a bizarre picture of domestic bliss until she kills his dog — actually his brother — for fun and provocation. Of course, David can’t stand for this and makes a run for the woods into the arms of the Loners. There, he meets Short Sighted Woman (Rachel Weisz), and they fall in love. As Loners, this is, of course, forbidden. They develop their own language to express their feelings for one another, before the leader of the Loners (Léa Seydoux) intervenes and seeks to disrupt their happiness by cruel means.
This strange, absurd, and deeply cynical vision of love shines a light on the strangeness of our own rituals of courtship and beliefs regarding destiny and soul mates. As for the fates of our two star-crossed lovers? It’s a bit of a litmus test regarding the state of your own heart. If you’ve seen it, report back on how you took the ending.
Photo: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock.
Love Is...Scary
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
This movie crafts a world in which memories — the bad ones, the hard ones, and the hurtful ones of love, and love lost especially — are merely elective.
The film’s first scene brings us to Joel (Jim Carrey, fidgety and neurotic) and Clementine (Kate Winslet, blue-haired and fiery) sharing a car ride home. Cut to the next sequence, and it's nighttime. Joel is sobbing as the rain casts polka-dotted shadows on his face while he drives the same car as before — but now Clementine is gone. What happened? What changed? In the next scene, Joel paces and recounts a moment to friends: “[And then] she looks at me like she doesn’t even know who I am. Why would she do that to me?” he asks in disbelief.
It turns out Clementine has had Joel and their relationship wiped from her memory. Soon after realising this, Joel seeks the same "memory erasure," a sort of self-induced brain damage. And so the technicians sift and stomp through Joel’s memories, erasing them one by one, second by second. Joel realises, quite helplessly, that he no longer wishes to go through with it.
The ensuing plot is a frenzied chase after fleeting memories and intimate moments skidding away from their inevitable obliteration. Faces cave into shapeless, melted blurs. Building rafters crash down onto the streets as Joel desperately calls after Clementine. She disappears just as she playfully smashes snow into his hair.
We can’t help but experience Joel and Clem’s love affair much like we might recall one of our own: fleeting and misplaced and slowly slipping away. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, love is an all too precious and precarious thing to be taken for granted.
Photo: Snap Stills/REX/Shutterstock.
Love Is...A lie
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
In this François Truffaut adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s iconic science-fiction masterpiece of the same name, love for another person becomes intermingled with love for knowledge, discovery, and freedom. The world of Fahrenheit 451 is lonely and anesthetised, marred by narcissism, superficiality, and loneliness. One of the mandates of this sedated society is that reading or owning books of any kind is prohibited. To that end, firemen are tasked with seeking out offenders and burning contraband rather than putting out fires. The people are glued to their television sets where they passively consume a program that refers to its audience as “family” and heaps them with praise for tuning in. This is not a very lively or freethinking bunch.
In the story, love takes two distinct forms. The first is the marriage between Guy Montag (Oskar Werner), a fireman, and his wife Linda Montag (Julie Christie). The second is a friendship that blossoms between Montag and Clarisse (also played by Julie Christie), a school teacher. Montag's marriage to Linda is very much a product of the times — superficial and based on half truths. He keeps many secrets from her. Linda is prone to taking a few too many of her pills before bedtime.
Clarisse, on the other hand, represents the great unknown and the naiveté and danger that comes with embracing it. Asking Montag if he ever reads any of those books he confiscates, Clarisse plants the seed that will soon divert the path of Montag’s life. Before long, he has a stash of confiscated classics — Dickens, Nabokov, an encyclopedia, too — hidden away throughout his home. As he falls deeper in love with his books, he becomes increasingly upset with the state of his marriage and the unfeeling existence of those around him. “Where did we first meet?” Montag asks Linda. She can’t remember. “That’s rather sad,” he remarks, clutching a cache of novels Linda has just discovered.
Eventually, Linda informs the officers of Montag’s criminal proclivities. Forced to burn his own personal library collection, Montag turns his flamethrower to the bedroom first before burning the house down and escaping to find Clarisse in the countryside beyond the city.
Photo: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock.
Love Is...A Threat
Ex Machina(2015)
During 2015’s SXSW festival, Tinder users may have matched with a beautiful woman who had just a few cursory questions for them. “Have you been in love?” or, “What makes you human?” she may have asked. But they weren’t just talking to a curious film industry professional with a pretty face. Turns out, they were chatting with Ava — a robot, and the central figure of Ex Machina, a film directed and written by Alex Garland that premiered at the festival that year.
It was a genius, and thoroughly creepy, PR stunt. Effective, too, because it so directly engaged with the central themes of the film itself. Love in the time of robots — now that’s a thing to ponder.
In Ex Machina, Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), a low-level coder at a huge tech company that resembles Facebook, is selected to visit his CEO’s remote compound. Played by Oscar Isaac, CEO Nathan is a true billionaire egoist; he’s volatile and a bit dangerous, too. Caleb’s trip, we learn, has one objective: to discern if the artificial intelligence Nathan has been developing passes the Turing test. In other words, whether Ava (Alicia Vikander), is as human as she is robot. It just so happens that Ava is quite the beguiling and beautiful creation. Caleb is under her masterfully calibrated spell before he knows what hit him.
As the movie continues, we learn, of course, that Nathan has designed his A.I. creations to satisfy many a male desire. That quality, coupled with Caleb’s doe-eyed vulnerability, makes for an odd bit of power play muddled with romance. All this leaves you wondering whether technological advancement and limitless possibility are going to make us less — or immeasurably more — alone. Jury’s still out.
Photo: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock.
Love Is...Forbidden
1984 (1984)
Perhaps the most renowned dystopian tale, George Orwell’s novel 1984 was adapted for the silver screen by Michael Radford in the very year alluded to in its title. The story takes place in the imagined year of 1984 in Oceania, a superstate run by a cruel totalitarian government, led by a figurehead named Big Brother.
Its edicts are protected and enforced by the ever-watchful Thought Police, and under them, Oceania’s inhabitants live a grey, squalid existence. In the world of 1984, love and intimacy are a massive threat to the powers that be. In one scene, a government official shares the good news that they are close to eliminating the orgasm. Without it, the gentleman explains, they will finally destroy the last vestige of a useless, outmoded human relation (looking at you, love, marriage, and family). Apparently, being close to another human alters one’s loyalties and poses a threat to the party.
The film’s protagonist, Winston (John Hurt), works at the Ministry of Truth, where he rewrites history to serve the government. He is plagued by terrible nightmares and guilt, until one day he meets Julia (Suzanna Hamilton). Before long, they begin a passionate but ill-fated love affair. Beyond the grey Brutalist city, they escape to bucolic green hills. “We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,” Julia’s letter to Winston reads. And so love is depicted as a threshold which may lead to peace and happiness, but also a path very much endangered and warranting of caution. Together, Julia and Winston share in the pleasures of other forbidden things, too, like coffee, tea, jam, and butter. Their idyllic, bohemian-feeling relationship stands in stark contrast to the ashen world around them.
Of course, it all comes to a halting end before long. It is their love that leads to their capture, torture, and eventual “rehabilitation.” Not a happy ending, that’s for sure — but it’s hard to miss the underlying conclusion that love is a worthy and fearsome opponent to evil and oppression.
Photo: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock.
Love Is...A Weapon
The Hunger Games (2012)
In the violently cruel and frivolous universe of The Hunger Games, love — even a gesture toward it — might save your life. Love is a weapon of sympathy and survival, and in The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) learns to wield it well.
Home in District 12, Katniss has a sort of trusted companion in Gale (Liam Hemsworth). They escape to the countryside to hunt together. They entertain sweet fantasies of running away from it all. But once she volunteers as a tribute and leaves District 12 for the wealthy Capitol, Katniss’ world is forced to transform. She learns quickly that love is a nifty way to generate vested intrigue from the droves of Capitol onlookers. If they are invested in her story, they will be invested in her, thus improving her chances of making it out of the deadly Games alive. Enter: Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), a quiet boy who is the male tribute from her district. Thrown together in a terrifying and life-threatening environment, they look to each other for support and safety. The crowd is so enamoured with their on-screen love story and selflessness in the face of sure death that they are spared. Throughout the series, love is manipulated and enacted as a sort of game strategy.
Despite shifting dynamics — and difficult-to-map emotions — the ability to feel love and empathy for others remains a formidable defence against the tyranny and atrocities present in the tragic world of Panem. Whether you’re Team Gale or Team Peeta, there's no denying that love plays a crucial role in the resolution of the series.
Photo: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock.
Love Is...Darwinistic
Gattaca (1997)
Set in the “not-too-distant future,” this cult classic stars Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Jude Law. In the world of Gattaca, eugenics is commonplace, babies are engineered, and the world is divided along the lines of worthy and unworthy: Valids and In-Valids (babies who were engineered and those who were left to chance).
Hawke’s Vincent, a so-called “God baby,” was not engineered. Upon birth, his genetics revealed a high risk of assorted health disorders and an estimated life span of 30.2 years — thus assigning him to a life of restricted opportunity. But Vincent has his eyes on the stars. Eager to be accepted into the prestigious Gattaca Aerospace Corporation, he embarks on a journey to adopt the identity of a willing Valid named Jerome (Law) and subvert the unfair system. Along the way to becoming top of his class, Vincent attracts the attention of another high achiever, Irene (Thurman). They begin to fall for one another, but only after Irene has had Vincent’s DNA sampled to make sure he is “as good as they say.” Satisfied with her findings (Vincent has mastered the art of deception and plants Jerome's hair near his desk), she apologises to Vincent/Jerome, offering a blond strand from her own head so he can decide if she is good enough for him.
As Vincent’s truth unravels, Irene becomes increasingly entangled — until finally he comes to her on the eve of his space mission departure, plucks a hair from his own head, and invites, “If you’re still interested, let me know.” She inspects the strand — the key to uncovering Vincent’s true, hidden identity. “The wind caught it,” she says with a smirk, as she lets it fall. We get the feeling that Vincent and Irene will be just fine, once he returns from a year in space.
Photo: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock.
Love Is...Salvation
The Fifth Element(1997)
Real talk: Who doesn’t go crazy for this movie? More than just a delightfully flashy parade of neon and pleather (the film’s costume designer was Jean Paul Gaultier), The Fifth Element serves as a parable for love as the only true salvation in life.
In the year 2263, a great evil looms at the perimeter of Earth’s solar system in the form of a huge planet of fire, on a mission set to destroy everything in its path. Apparently, the only thing that can save us is a weapon that was removed from Earth three centuries earlier for safekeeping. The weapon includes the divine and titular fifth element. As is to be expected, the weapon comes under attack and proceeds to bop around the solar system, sought by evil warlords and violent alien populations throughout much of the film. Along the way, a former special forces major named Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis in shining form) becomes embroiled in the intergalactic quest for salvation (and love, too).
As it turns out, this fifth element takes the form of a humanoid woman of supreme power and ability named Leeloo (Milla Jovovich). As Korben and company soon come to learn, Leeloo is not as strong as she first appears to be. What’s more, as she spends time on Earth and learns of our planet’s troubled past, she gathers that as a people we are destructive and petty, war-mongering and violent. In short, Leeloo comes to doubt if we are, in fact, worthy of saving.
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