Her

Written and Directed by Spike Jonze

 

With Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johanssen, Amy Adams
and Rooney Mara

 

Her is a story about a love affair, but not a love affair as we know it, but a love affair with technology. Spike Jonze  has directed and written a chilling story about our not too distant future.  And he does it brilliantly.  Her is insightful, smart, funny and sublimely

original.

Theodore Twombly(Joaquin Phoenix) is an awkward and socially self conscious everyman who lives in Los Angeles.  But the city looks different:  The high-rises are higher, everything is gleaming and clean, as if it is hermetically sealed. 

Theodore is a professional letter writer who produces beautiful hand written love letters for people who have forgotten how to write or express emotions.  Like most of the other Los Angelinos, he

plays interactive video games, in lieu of having personal relationships. 
 He is going through an unwanted divorce.

One day he buys a new interactive operating system, the OS1.

A sultry voice announces its presence.  The voice is ‘Samantha’,
(Scarlett Johanssen) who is designed to reflect and respond to his needs.
A relationship between the man and the Operating System commences.

Theodore and Samantha have middle of the night conversations,
early morning conversations: in fact, he is with her non stop.
She praises him, makes appointments for him, promotes his work,
helps organize his life.  She even sets him up with a surrogate sexual partner. Samantha is a perfect human being, only she is an operating system.  Of course, they fall in love.

 He takes Samantha on excursions where she sees through the lens of his smartphone which he places in his front pocket.  But soon he notices that everyone seems to have their phones facing out of their front pockets, lost in the world with their own OS1 systems.

Joaquin Phoenix reflects not onlyTheodore’s angst but also his joy when he is ‘with’ Samantha.  He is alone on screen interacting with a voice throughout Her, and his acting never hits a false note.

Scarlett Johanssen  develops a perfect chemistry with Phoenix..

She is never on screen, but she becomes a perfectly developed character.

Her raises many questions about our love affair with

technology.  It already monopolizes much of our lives.
Can it be a surrogate for real human connections?  How are human beings being affected as a result of it? We already have difficulties
connecting with others.  How wonderful to have an OS1
that anticipates our every need.  Spike Jonze has insightfully
created an ingenious world, not too far from our own.

Are virtual affairs an inevitable result of our relationship to technology?  See Her and make up your own mind.