Her (2013, R)

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When I first heard about Her, I gave it a bit of an eye-roll.  I knew the concept but hadn’t seen any clips, and I assumed it would be a one-joke film trying to keep itself propelled by the steam of a guy in love with his phone.  It sounded like the episode of The Big Bang Theory where Raj develops a crush on Siri, and so I was pretty surprised when it wracked up an impressive number of Oscar nominations.

 

I hadn’t taken Spike Jonze into account.  I first became acquainted with Jonze through his work with Charlie Kaufman, where I saw his adept direction and eye for detail.  He directs and writes Her, and he creates a compelling, emotional sci-fi-ish story about connecting in the information age and what it means to be human.

 

Theo (Joaquin Phoenix, in an affecting performance) is shy, sensitive, and single – a perfect cocktail for loneliness.  He’s had his heart broken, and he walk solitarily through his world (the Not-Too-Distant Future.)  Like many around him, his life is lived plugged in.  He’s all about his 3-D motion-controlled video games, Lonely Hearts Clubs phone chats with strangers, and keeping the world contained within his smartphone.

 

Everything he knows changes, of course, with the introduction of a new artificially-intelligent operating system.  From the moment he meets Sam, the self-named amiable voice inside his phone and computer, Theo is struck by her.  She’s quick and funny, and their working relationship soon moves into and beyond friendship.  A romance in which only one of the participants is corporeal presents a challenge, and Theo and Sam navigate the ups and downs of their relationship.  It’s sometimes messy, sometimes painful, sometimes exquisite, and in Jonze’s careful hands, it’s always riveting.

 

Right from the start, he does things right by giving Sam a perspective of her own.  The idea of an artificially-intelligent woman dating the man she’s literally been created to serve is sketchy at best, and the power imbalance could’ve easily rendered the whole thing uniformly awful.  However, Sam proves herself an equal partner in the relationship.  She has feelings of her own that she wants addressed, and when she and Theo argue, there are moments when you can forget she doesn’t have a body.  Furthermore, she has a journey of self-discovery apart from her connection to Theo.  Throughout the film, Sam tries to figure out who she is, what she is and isn’t capable of, and what that means for her.  Scarlett Johansson does a great job building the character from her warm, engaging vocal performance.

 

The film also examines what happens to society when such a huge technological leap is made.  Theo isn’t the only person connecting with an OS, and the world is shifting to take the resulting issues into account.  It’s smart, thoughtful writing.  In a way, the film reminds me of Gattaca, another stylish movie that uses science fiction to ruminate on a contemporary subject in an intelligent way – in this case, the subject is technology and its effect on the human community.

 

Warnings

 

Language and sexual content, including graphic sexual talk and a little nudity.