Her (2013)

“The past is just a story we tell ourselves.” – Samantha

Number of Times Seen – 1 (13 Jan 2014)

Brief Synopsis – In the not so distant future, a lonely man gets a new computer with Artificial Intelligence and through his interactions with the voice inside, he begins to create a real relationship with his new companion.

My Take on it – I must confess that I have never been a very big fan of Spike Jonze.  I hated Being John Malkovich (1999), was utterly bored during Where the Wild Things Are (2009) and just skipped Adaptation (2002) for the shear fact that I didn’t expect it to be any good.

On the other hand, I have always been a fan of Joaquin (Leaf) Pheonix ever since I saw SpaceCamp (1986) and Russkies (1987).  When he re-emerged in 2000 with his “real” name in Gladiator (2000), he showed that he was not only as great an actor as his deceased brother River, but was in some ways an even better actor.

I was mesmerized by his performance in Walk the Line (2005),  Since then he has gone on to prove to the entire world that even when everyone thinks he isn’t acting, he can fool them.  His whole debacle on Letterman and the subsequent two years of his charade were acts of pure genius.  Anyone who tells you that they weren’t fooled by the whole thing is lying.

In this movie, he plays a lonely man in that not so distant future, who falls in love with the AI personality on his new OS (personal computer to make it simple) called Samantha (voiced perfectly by Scarlett Johansson).  We see how this love grows between the two through all of their conversations and this movie says lots about society’s tolerance or intolerance towards “mixed” relationships.  This movie takes that whole discussion to a completely different level.

At first we think it’s strange, but soon, we hear of many more instances where these things are happening and debates begin as to whether it is ethical or not to have a relationship with an AI personality.  The love and attraction are completely based on feeling, emotions and also on conversations as opposed to just physical aspects.

This concept is revolutionary since with the way technology is heading, it’s truly possible for much of the sci-fi in this movie to one day occur.

The thing tho that makes this movie so memorable is the script written by Jonze himself.  He creates characters that we all can like and I actually found myself hoping that this movie not end because I wanted to see and learn more about these characters.  That isn’t an easy task to do in a movie and I can gladly say that it is all due to Jonze, Pheonix and the voice of Scarlett Johansson that this movie works so well.

Bottom Line – Great movie that shows how relationships could possible evolve to in the future.  The performances by Johansson and Pheonix along with the script by Jonze, pulls us in to a point that we never want to leave.  Highly recommended!

Rating – Oscar Worthy

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