operator

"I would like to go back to being your wife, not your science experiment."

"But I enjoy listening to you."

"I don't think you've been hearing me at all."

***

s p o i l e r  a l e r t . 

Operator (2016) is a science-comedy (is that even a genre?) movie. The movie opens with a loving young couple, happily married to each other. It's Joe Larsen (Martin Starr) and Emily Klein (Mae Withman). The two has a job on their own, Joe as a programmer and Emily as a call operator in a hotel. Joe and his team is struggling on making a new program called Alexis; which is an operating system who can assist you with whatever you needs, like healthcare, insurance, emergency, etc. Alexis keeps on being denied by their clients because she sounds careless, impolite, harsh, and has no empathy. 

While Joe is desperate of his clients' needs, he called Emily; he basically needs Emily for every time he feels desperate because he has a severe panic attack disorder which can be triggered whenever he's stressed out. They have that secret code; Room 1313, to let Emily know it's Joe who's calling her. At the moment Emily's voice soothes him, Joe immediately knows who's going to voice for Alexis. And that's when the movie begins.

This movie kinda reminds me of Her (2013) and Ex Machina (2014), where one's falling in love with someone's voice or body, but they do realize it wasn't right. It can't be done. Joe falls in love with Emily's voice, while actually he has the real Emily besides him, whom he ignores. He prefers to listen to Emily as an operating system rather than listening to his own  wife. It's ironic, because he'd rather call the operating system 400 times than call his own wife and fix their fragile marriage. And that's what I love about this movie. It shows how fragile our feeling is as a human being. We practically falls in love with someone who's imaginary; fits to our perspective as a perfect criteria. Emily as an operating system do whatever Joe wants her to do; she'll comfort him, soothes him, and being there 24/7, while the real Emily can't do that. The real Emily needs to go to work, having some drama performance, and sleep.

Operator is funny, sweet, and honest. I'll give it 3/5.