Movie Review: Spike Jonze's "Her" Creates An Intriguing Future With A Strong, Yet Subtle Performance From Joaquin Phoenix.

Her

Director: Spike Jonze
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Chris Pratt, and Scarlett Johansson.
Rated R for language, sexual content, and brief graphic nudity.

Director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Where the Wild Things Are) creates a wholly unique love story that takes place in the near future, one that is entirely plausible, and in all honesty, very likely. Joaquin Phoenix, once again, proves that he is one of the strongest actors working today and Scarlett Johansson brings some real emotion and complexity to the voice of Samantha.


Her tells the story of Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), a quiet man who makes his living writing love letters for others, and who is also going through the final stages of divorce from the first love of his life, Catherine (Rooney Mara). One evening, on his way home from work, Theodore sees an advertisement for the very first artificial intelligent operating system or OS. He buys the program and installs the OS at home by answering some personal questions about himself in order for the OS to create the ideal voice for the OS. Thus, Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) is created. Theodore is quickly amazed by how real his new OS sounds and behaves, and the two begin to share a loving relationship.

What is most impressive about the film is that Spike Jonze creates a future world that is completely relatable and attainable. Whether or not you agree with what happens on screen, the film will force you talk about it long after it's over. That is something that few films rarely achieve...creating a conversation. Can a man or woman fall in love with an artificial intelligent system? Is that natural? Could it work? These are the types of questions that Jonze dares to ask.

What took me away from the brilliant concept of the screenplay was the sexual content. Sometimes it is used comically, other times it's used intimately, but most of the time I felt it was used excessively and unnecessarily. Admittedly, I am not a prude, but I feel that Jonze could have provided the same social commentary without being as graphic in his dialogue, but that's just one man's opinion. That aside, this is an intriguing film and one that I feel will come back into conversation in a number of years when Jonze's future has become a reality.

RATING: B