Do you ever think about what it would be like to be the only human left on Earth? Or at least think you are the only human left? In the 2007 post-apocalyptic film, I Am Legend starring Will Smith, the philosophical idea that humans need human interaction to survive is very evident. Smith’s character in the film, Robert Neville, has survived a disease that he believes killed off all of humanity besides him. There were people who were turned into these zombie-like mutants by the disease. As Neville has been alone for a while, he has started to go kind of crazy; re-watching old news clips and treating his pet German shepherd, Sam, as more of a human than a dog, among other strange things.

In the film, Neville starts off each day watching old news clips; this is where you start to get the sense that he is going crazy. He doesn’t want to accept the fact that this disease killed off all of society, or so he thinks. So, living in denial and wanting things to be like they used to, he watches old news clips in rotation every morning as if the world hasn’t changed at all.

Another way that we see the psychological need for human interaction is the way he acts with Sam. He talks to Sam as if she is a person, telling her things like “make sure you eat your vegetables.” He treats her like he would treat a son or daughter, which is understandable because he did have a daughter but she was killed when her helicopter crashed while evacuating the city while the disease was at its worst. While he bathes Sam, he sings to her and talks to her as we would to our children. He also runs on the treadmill with her and when he realizes it is his birthday, he tells her he hopes she didn’t plan anything because he doesn’t like surprises.

Some of the strangest parts of the film are when Neville goes to the movie store, which is obviously abandoned as is the rest of the city. When he enters, you notice that he had previously placed mannequins around the store and even dressed them up. He talks to them like they are living humans, even giving them names. In one scene at the movie store, he asks one of the mannequins if they have feelings for one of the other mannequins.

Late in the film, Sam ends up being infected with the disease after being attacked by the zombie-like mutants. Neville ends up having to kill her because the disease spreads through her body too quickly and he has not yet formulated a cure. After this, he realizes he is completely alone. He goes back to the movie store, but this time he knows they aren’t real and he breaks down, pleading for them to talk to him.

There is scientific evidence that lack of human interaction can cause depression, sleep insomnia, poor digestion, and health, compromises the immune system, and/or can affect the wiring of the frontal lobes in your brain. Through all of these instances in the film, it is evident that an underlying message of the film is that humans need to interact with other humans because living in isolation has negative effects on our psyche. Neville has no true human interaction until the end of the film, but throughout the movie, he has to resort to treating his pet as human as well as making mannequins out to be human.

I Am Legend. Francis Lawrence. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2007. Film.

Watkins, Anthony. “I Am Legend: The Psychological and Philosophical Aspects of Humanity.” Cinemablography, www.cinemablography.org/i-am-legend.html.