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Her (2013)
Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Portia Doubleday, Oliva Wilde. Directed by Spike Jonze.
Theodore Twombley is in love with his computer’s operating system. This new OS, which starts off knowing only how to do things, develops something close to the ability to think and feel, and because it also has the voice of Scarlett Johansson, Theodore falls in love with it. It names itself Samantha, and it gets to know Theodore better than just about anyone else, in such a short period of time that this romance is something of a whirlwind, Samantha trying everything for the first time, caught up in the need to fill moments with experience, and Theodore, forced to articulate his thoughts, finding a captive, interested, sympathetic audience. For a very short time, each is what the other needs.
Theodore is played by Joaquin Phoenix in a truly excellent performance. He’s a bit of a loner, recently split from his wife (Rooney Mara) but reluctant to sign the divorce papers. By day, he writes love letters on behalf of people who can’t express themselves; by night, he plays video games. Once in a while he hangs out with Amy (played by Amy Adams), a very close college friend who is clearly married to someone who doesn’t get her. Amy and Theodore dated very briefly in college but have since settled into the platonic super-close friend zone.
One of the best things about Her is that it gives you a lot to mull over. First there are the two major, film-delineated themes: a science-fiction what-would-happen-if theme, and the romantic-comedy what’s-the-difference-between-a-lover-and-a-super-close-friend theme. I can see people feeling unsatisfied with the film’s attempts to address these issues, but I found them both pretty satisfying. There are a few other things as well, things about people out there falling in love with each other because of letters written by a stranger, or strangers having sex absent any kind of meaningful, real-life context. And there is something to be drawn between Theodore’s relationship with his ex-wife and Samantha’s relationship with Theodore. And probably not as interesting, there’s probably something to be said about the way everyone in the film is looking down at a mobile device in just about every public space.
So it gets huge points for being so thought-provoking; I’d have loved to see this with a date. The post-movie dinner conversation in the setting of a date would have been pretty good, especially if the date were still in the getting-to-know-you phase. And it gets points for very good performances by everyone I’ve named, plus Olivia Wilde as a blind date and Portia Doubleday as a sex surrogate. And it gets points for somehow working as a science-fiction picture and as a romantic comedy, two genres I’m fond of. I’m even going to give it points for an ending I really like. Yet somehow Her falls just short of greatness.
It’s not difficult to buy the romance between Samantha and Theodore, but it is difficult to feel it. In a good romantic comedy, we viewers need to see the couple in situations where there are both an easy comfort and a thrilling, almost electric sparkle. The couple needs to have fun. The couple needs to connect across a loud table at a sit-down dinner party, with a look or a touch or some other shared moment. Her tries to accomplish this, but none of it works exactly right.
I once dated someone who posited that the only difference between friendship and romance is sex. There might be different ways, she suggested, for sexual attraction to come into existence, but without it in whatever form it takes for any possible couple, it’s just friendship. I disagreed, mostly because I had a feeling I was on the wrong side of that line, but I get the feeling director/writer Spike Jonez would agree. If this is the case, then (as was the case with his earlier film, Adaptation), his film fails ever so slightly by being successful, and one wouldn’t put it past him for that to be his intention all along. In this way, the science fiction theme wins the tug-o-war (if a tug-o-war it is) between science fiction and romantic comedy, a contest I’d have preferred going in opposite direction.
8/10 (IMDb rating)
84/100 (Criticker rating)
Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Portia Doubleday, Oliva Wilde. Directed by Spike Jonze.
Theodore Twombley is in love with his computer’s operating system. This new OS, which starts off knowing only how to do things, develops something close to the ability to think and feel, and because it also has the voice of Scarlett Johansson, Theodore falls in love with it. It names itself Samantha, and it gets to know Theodore better than just about anyone else, in such a short period of time that this romance is something of a whirlwind, Samantha trying everything for the first time, caught up in the need to fill moments with experience, and Theodore, forced to articulate his thoughts, finding a captive, interested, sympathetic audience. For a very short time, each is what the other needs.
Theodore is played by Joaquin Phoenix in a truly excellent performance. He’s a bit of a loner, recently split from his wife (Rooney Mara) but reluctant to sign the divorce papers. By day, he writes love letters on behalf of people who can’t express themselves; by night, he plays video games. Once in a while he hangs out with Amy (played by Amy Adams), a very close college friend who is clearly married to someone who doesn’t get her. Amy and Theodore dated very briefly in college but have since settled into the platonic super-close friend zone.
One of the best things about Her is that it gives you a lot to mull over. First there are the two major, film-delineated themes: a science-fiction what-would-happen-if theme, and the romantic-comedy what’s-the-difference-between-a-lover-and-a-super-close-friend theme. I can see people feeling unsatisfied with the film’s attempts to address these issues, but I found them both pretty satisfying. There are a few other things as well, things about people out there falling in love with each other because of letters written by a stranger, or strangers having sex absent any kind of meaningful, real-life context. And there is something to be drawn between Theodore’s relationship with his ex-wife and Samantha’s relationship with Theodore. And probably not as interesting, there’s probably something to be said about the way everyone in the film is looking down at a mobile device in just about every public space.
So it gets huge points for being so thought-provoking; I’d have loved to see this with a date. The post-movie dinner conversation in the setting of a date would have been pretty good, especially if the date were still in the getting-to-know-you phase. And it gets points for very good performances by everyone I’ve named, plus Olivia Wilde as a blind date and Portia Doubleday as a sex surrogate. And it gets points for somehow working as a science-fiction picture and as a romantic comedy, two genres I’m fond of. I’m even going to give it points for an ending I really like. Yet somehow Her falls just short of greatness.
It’s not difficult to buy the romance between Samantha and Theodore, but it is difficult to feel it. In a good romantic comedy, we viewers need to see the couple in situations where there are both an easy comfort and a thrilling, almost electric sparkle. The couple needs to have fun. The couple needs to connect across a loud table at a sit-down dinner party, with a look or a touch or some other shared moment. Her tries to accomplish this, but none of it works exactly right.
I once dated someone who posited that the only difference between friendship and romance is sex. There might be different ways, she suggested, for sexual attraction to come into existence, but without it in whatever form it takes for any possible couple, it’s just friendship. I disagreed, mostly because I had a feeling I was on the wrong side of that line, but I get the feeling director/writer Spike Jonez would agree. If this is the case, then (as was the case with his earlier film, Adaptation), his film fails ever so slightly by being successful, and one wouldn’t put it past him for that to be his intention all along. In this way, the science fiction theme wins the tug-o-war (if a tug-o-war it is) between science fiction and romantic comedy, a contest I’d have preferred going in opposite direction.
8/10 (IMDb rating)
84/100 (Criticker rating)