Her, the new film starring Joaquin Phoenix and written and directed by Spike Jonze, is garnering very good reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes currently gives the film a 93% critics rating (and 87% audience rating). The movie was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. It does address an interesting concept and I enjoyed much of the story, but I was not as overwhelmed as the critics.
Her takes place in the not-to-distant future where we know it is the future because people do not wear belts but they do wear mustaches. Phoenix stars as a writer named Theodore Twombly going through a divorce who falls in love with the advanced operating system on his cell phone, voiced by Scarlett Johansson.
I have admired movies by Jonze since Being John Malkovich (1999), and he does an excellent job here of capturing a world that is recognizable but slightly different from ours. The film also raises interesting questions about artificial intelligence and human relationships, addressing more immediate problems raised by computers than what we see in other science fiction films like Terminator. I enjoyed the characterization by Phoenix and the voice work by Johansson. And Amy Adams does a great job here too. But my one complaint about the film was that there was not enough there to keep me entertained for two hours. I never became invested in Phoenix’s character enough to stay entertained. For me, the movie could have told the same story in ninety minutes or less.
Conclusion? Most people are enjoying this film, so maybe you will too. For me, I enjoyed a lot of the movie but it could not keep me from looking at my watch several times. Still, Her raises some interesting issues that might lead you to further discussions with your friends.
Bonus Parody Video: This weekend on Saturday Night Live, host Jonah Hill (with a little help from Micheal Cera) did a funny parody with the preview for the movie Me. Check it out.
Did you like Her? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
I’m embarrassed to say that this OS fantasy is not my cup of tea. I think you were right about it could have been much shorter. The ending is relatively sloppy or maybe I’m not sophisticated enough to figure this out — what happened to all the OSs in the end? Did Microsoft recall them all because the company got sued for breaking people’s hearts? Joaquin Phoenix definitely did a great job though.
I agree that Phoenix did a great job. Regarding the ending, I think there is definitely some ambiguity there. [*Spoiler alert] The OS’s may have decided on their own to move on. One may imagine different reasons as well as different theories about where they went. Your question led me to look online for different theories, but what most surprised me was that some people have a theory that leads to an unhappy end for two of the main human characters. Thanks for the comment.