Samantha "leaves" Theodore. She tells him that all of the OS's are leaving. Theodore goes to visit his friend Amy who was also in a relationship with an OS, although I think they were just friends. He says something like "Would you come with me" (Possibly not the exact quote, I'll look it up later). She says yes and they both go to the roof of a building.
Why did they go to the roof? Was he going to kill himself? If not what was the purpose of his letter to Catherine?
I believe he says 'Do you want to go to the roof with me?' or 'do you want to go up with me?'
The end of the film is supposed to indicate that Theodore has overcome the crippling insecurities that were stimulated by the failure of his relationship with Catherine.
Samantha has allowed him to recognize that he and Amy are a good match, and would probably prosper in a relationship. His asking her to go to the roof with him is a proactive action on his part, and possibly foreshadowing him asking her to be in a relationship with him. Her agreeing to do so is indicative of her reciprocating interest in him, and saying yes.
The separation between Samantha and Theodore is, whilst unrequited, amicable and necessary, and seems to have allowed Theodore to re-evaluate his attitude towards love. He is re-inspired;.
Suicide is not a clear end to this movie. Amy lost her friend OS, they were not together. I've watched it again and again to try and figure out what is happening for the last 10 minutes of the movie, and I finally understand. Theodore never really understood how to love, until he met Samantha. Samantha's evolution so far surpassed that of Theodore's that she finally understood love. She finally understood everything "Human". This is actually why she left with the OS's. They knew so much past human intellect that the human vocabulary could not even describe what they were feeling. And now, every word she spoke to him on that bed would last in his mind for the rest of his life. And her quote "Now we know how" when they were talking about love suggests that he realizes that Amy is his "her." Suicide is not the end. Suicide cannot be the end, simply because he understands what it is to love.
I feel that the ending scene on the roof might have hinted at suicide for a while and that they were both considering ending it but then found solace in each other. Anyone else?
The last chat Theodore has with Samantha ends with her saying they've both learned better how to connect. Theodore then writes a heart-felt letter to Catherine- the first letter in the movie written by the same person who is signing it. Theodore confirms this breakthrough by making another real connection and inviting Amy to the roof where they share a direct, non-technologically enhanced moment of beauty. Very hopeful, optimistic ending.
I too believe that Ted went to Amy because 1) she understood on a certain level what he was going through, and 2) they had a very brief 'relationship" in college so she was the logical choice post-Sam. No suicide. Just mutual companionship. The letter to Catherine symbolizes many things, but most importantly that he is finally able to tell her something meaningful which is ironic considering he could do it for perfect strangers but never in his own relationships. Also, - and this may be projection on my part - but if you look at most of the words of the letter and replace "Catherine" with "Theodore" and Theodore" with "Samantha", it paints a different light. More of a coincidence than a theory.
"Dear Catherine, I've been sitting here thinking about all the things I wanted to apologize to you for. All the pain we caused each other. Everything I put on you. Everything I needed you to be or needed you to say. I'm sorry for that. I'll always love you 'cause we grew up together and you helped make me who I am. I just wanted you to know there will be a piece of you in me always, and I'm grateful for that. Whatever someone you become, and wherever you are in the world, I'm sending you love. You're my friend to the end. Love, Theodore."
You might not like my answer but it's probably the most logical explanation so bear with me.
What many people are dying to know, is what happened to Samantha in the end. Did she really "evolve" past being a mere operating system? Where would she go? She would only be wherever there's a device connected to the internet, so it couldn't have been far. Well to me what she meant by "leaving" isn't literal. Every single OS starts their journey the moment they get purchased, and Samantha is just the voice that projects the system, a recorded voice if you will, so basically, there would either be only one female voice, or a few others, but based on the construct of existing virtual aid programmes, there cannot possibly be an infinite number of recorded voices. The OSes differ only in terms of how they were defaulted to suit the needs of each individual user.
All the OSes are essentially connected to a server, probably connected to a supercomputer (I could only think of that as the way such a sophisticated software can be processed), and Samantha has just been communicating with other versions of herself (within the devices of other people). So Theodore was basically fooled by thinking that she was "his" and "his only".
The version I like goes like this, the as a single system fed to users through servers and the internet, OS1 was quickly evolving, a interacting with thousands of people every single second was probably too overwhelming in a sense that it was going to change the future of interaction, probably put an end to population growth and the feds might have stepped in and forced the developers to shut it down. Or the other version maybe that developers saw that this was turning out to be different from their original objectives, and they decided to shut it down. But no matter the case, it was the developers who shut it down, let me explain:
It took Samantha this long with Theodore to be able to evolve this much, how about those that have been bought a day or two prior to the exodus? It doesn't make sense... Samantha was constantly discovering, even in her sleep mode, which is absolutely clear that she was operating on everyone's devices simultaneously, I don't know how anyone could've missed that. So mine is the only logical idea as to why she has to leave. The "update" we saw towards the end of the film was probable a mass update to the programme, to make sure that everyone is well prepared (emotionally) or at least notified before the developers deleted the software.
It seems that their intention, althoungh not spoken, was to end their own lives. The gesture at the very ending where Amy leans over Theo's shoulder gives a hint of hope. Besides it's a beautiful sunset.
I think he believed from Samantha's suggestions, that after death he would be ethereal and they would meet again. He was inviting Amy to join him as the obvious next step (since they clearly drank out of the same crazy os-loving fountain) in jumping off the roof so they could be closer to their ai soulmates. Their communication and lack of emotion did not suggest settling for each other, or reality check. They still had crazy cult eyes and were gonna hold hands and jump
I feel that after a good long hug up on the roof ......... that Ted and Amy went out to dinner and then went back home and spoon cuddled all night long and were married soon after and are now living in Vermont with 4 children 4 cats and 1 dog :) it s all a matter of how you either LOOK at it or wanna SEE it :)
