If You Liked ‘Her’, Then You Should Watch ‘Violet Evergarden’

Her’s Theodore Twombly lives in a future of soft, warm hues and simplified technology. When he walks beneath the looming landscape of a metropolis, or stands in a crowded public transit, he’s surrounded by the harmony of subtle obliviousness: the internet is in everyone’s ear.

In this realistic future, people navigate the digital extensions of their lives primarily by spoken word. The art of capturing the essence of life and love on paper is left to Theodore and his friends, who work at beautifulhandwrittenletters.com.

When Her begins, Theodore is ghostwriting vicariously from the perspective of a client named Loretta. To her husband, Chris, he writes for her,

...I was just living my life like I knew everything, and suddenly this bright light hit me and woke me up.

This kind of awakening is a defining theme throughout Her, along with its surprisingly excellent pairing, Violet Evergarden (Netflix Series.) Theodore roils in the memories preceding his pending divorce, before being awakened by his new AI companion, Samantha. Samantha questions the nature of her bodiless existence, and asks,

How do you share your life with somebody?

Theodore becomes her bright light, helping her understand what love is, and what it’s like to share a life.

Samantha’s encounter with the Alan Watts AI is yet another awakening for her. And in the process of losing Samantha, Theodore finds the right words to both appreciate and let go of his ex-wife, in his own written letter.

The art of sharing a life is also the formula for writing a great letter. It’s the formula that makes Her a profound film, carefully wielding the candid, awkward moments of Theodore’s lonely nights, along with the heights of his relationships, and the sanctuary of friends during the lows; the struggle for self-realization and resolution. The balance of these things strike a pitch-perfect tone of authenticity. Violet Evergarden does the same, but in a much more intense scenario.

Where the retro style aesthetic of Her evokes the similarly retro concept of writing letters, Violet Evergarden’s aesthetic goes back even further to an elegant, Victorian setting. Here, writing is done on typewriters, and letters are sealed with red wax—which, coincidentally, is a thematic color in Her’s aesthetic.

Violet’s new job at the Auto Memory Doll Service is like Theodore’s job at beautifulhandwrittenletters.com, except she comes from a traumatic past as a child soldier, and is expected to travel to meet her clients.

As a gifted child regarded only for her uncanny skill at combat, Violet perceives herself to be something like a disposable AI. When she’s placed under the command of Major Gilbert, his unprecedented kindness feels cryptic to her.

At the Auto Memory Doll Service, her mechanical hands initially type mechanical letters. She’s an underdog in the ghostwriting business, but she won’t give up before she can understand the meaning of Major Gilbert’s last words to her: “I love you.”

Violet Evergarden greatly expands on Her’s concept of letter writing as a business. Violet takes us on missions to meet her clients, and in her attempts to put their feelings into words, discovers clues about the meaning of love.

Witnessing the incredible impact that Violet’s letters can have, and how the difficulty of her missions increase with every success, make the episodes of this series almost impossible not to watch back to back.

There’s a Violet Evergarden movie as well, but I recommend watching the series first. You may also want to grab a box of tissues, or chop some onions nearby, depending on how you handle your tears.