HER

Her (2013)

Grade: B+

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams and Rooney Mara, with Scarlett Johansson as the voice of Samantha

Premise: A lonely divorcee falls in love with the female personality of his apartment’s computerized operating system.

Rated R for constant profanity (including intense, graphic sex-related dialogue), sexuality and brief nudity

Two nights ago, Spike Jonze won the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay for this film, and no wonder. Though its basic premise is a truly peculiar one—a man in the not-too-distant future essentially falls in love with the voice of his computer—Her is really a movie that has been cut from the fabric of real life. The main relationship is obviously a nod to modern society’s growing dependence on technology, but, far more than a commentary on voice-activated machines and technological convenience, Jonze’s surprisingly intimate movie is really about how people deal with relationships. Every single character in this movie has layers, and the relationships they have with other characters have layers, too. There’s a divorcee who greets her ex with warmth and gentleness—remembering the good times and sensing the easy, natural rapport—but who bristles immediately upon being criticized even slightly. There’s a drunken single mother who really just wants to have a good time, but, even facing the prospect of a pleasurable evening, fights against putting herself in a position to be hurt again. And there’s a man who, even though he’s desperately lonely and has an imagination full of romantic ideas, can’t help but try and shrug off the idea of a real, committed relationship. Her isn’t a perfect movie—it’s longer than it needs to be, and a lot of the dialogue has been unnecessarily over-sexualized—but, despite its futuristic trappings, it’s a movie almost everyone can relate to, as the words spoken and the feelings invoked are ones everyone can relate to.

Plot

Thanks to a voice-automated earpiece, Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) can accomplish almost anything without doing almost anything. With his computer network being scanned for him, he can check his e-mail, hear the day’s weather, scan the day’s news headlines, and even search for a lonely partner for some late-night phone sex. He also doesn’t have to do much at work; a writer for BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com, he dictates to his computer love letters people call in and ask him to write for them, whether they’re birthday notes, anniversary letters, or post-break-up apologies. He’s good at his work because he has a way of expressing romantic feelings, but his personal life is in shambles. He’s nearing the end of the line in a drawn-out, messy divorce from his childhood sweetheart (Rooney Mara), while trying to council and comfort his flaky close friend Amy (Amy Adams) as she enters a divorce of her own. He spends his evenings alone, goes to bed alone, and wakes up alone. So when he hears of a new type of computerized Operating System that’s so high-tech and real it’s like having someone else around all the time, he jumps at the chance.

After answering a few basic questions about his personality, his OS is downloaded and begins speaking to him as if it’s a real person he just met. Light, perky, and fun, Samantha (as she calls herself, voiced by Scarlett Johansson) is soon the apple of Theodore’s eye. While she doesn’t actually have a body, she can see through the camera on Theodore’s cell phone, she can speak to him 24/7 through his earpiece, she sees everything on his computer, and she can gain knowledge instantaneously by scanning the web in milliseconds. With Samantha in his ear, Theodore now has a friend to talk to at work, at home, at the beach, in the park, everywhere he could want one. Soon, as Amy notes, he’s happy as could be, fulfilled on even more levels after one night in which he and Samantha start talking intimately and things get steamy. That said, he can’t pretend he’s not by himself all the time. He loves Samantha, loves talking to her and hearing from her at all hours, but he’s surrounded by people who have spouses, who have families, who have relationships with people they can see and touch and embrace. And, though he perks up every time he hears from Samantha, he starts wondering if he should cut ties with her. But she’s become his one constant companion; if he lets her go, he’ll be alone again…

What Works?

If that sounds a little weird or hard to imagine—especially the part about “things getting steamy” between Theodore and his computer system—it is, but part of Jonze’s genius is that you almost don’t even think about it. Given flowing, realistic dialogue by Jonze and voiced perfectly by Johansson (who doesn’t actually show her face in the film but deserves a ton of praise), Samantha seems real, as though Theodore is merely chatting with someone on his cell phone the entire movie. Not only is she bubbly and up for anything and good for Theodore’s ego, she’s comforting, she’s consoling, and she’s even challenging, Theodore finds, if he says something she doesn’t like. Samantha’s words and voice are so convincing and engaging that even if you find yourself wondering how exactly a computer is thinking and talking that way, it doesn’t seem especially relevant, and doesn’t effect your enjoyment of the film.

Beyond Samantha, Jonze’s writing is still terrific, and he’s aided enormously by a group of game actors who excel at playing real. In his wild turn in The Master last year, Phoenix proved he’ll do anything, and he does it again here, although, this time, instead of coming across like an amazing actor providing amazing acting fireworks, he’s a regular Joe, but that’s a regular Joe who’s absolutely convincing as a real guy. He’s quiet, he’s self-conscious, he’s lonely, and even when he senses his unconventional relationship may be poisoning other parts of his life, he clings on for dear life because his relationship feels ‘safe’ and ‘normal’. But then, being a complicated person, he can’t meet with his ex-wife without feeling heaps of bitterness, and he can’t make himself respond to a gorgeous, tipsy blind date (a magnetic Olivia Wilde) when she asks him to tell her straight-up he’s not just out for a one-night-stand. Along with Wilde, Mara does a lot with a little material, conveying multiple emotions at once, and the consistently-great Amy Adams predictably steals a handful of scenes as Theodore’s supportive but complicated bestie.

With some nicely-illuminated cityscapes serving as backdrops, Her looks great, but never better than when it’s focused on Phoenix’s face. Almost every audience member will be able to relate to the feelings shown onscreen, whether in the flicks of his eyes, the downturn of his mouth, or panicked or devastated tears. As mentioned, Jonze’s big accomplishment is making a movie about people and relationships people will understand.

What Doesn’t Work?

That’s not to say it’s perfect. The over-reliance on sex-related dialogue and other sexual material gets old fast, whether it’s a foul-mouthed video game character simulating sex or the very vocal expressions of pleasure emanating from both Samantha and Theodore when they “have sex” (an earlier scene of Theodore having phone sex with a lonely stranger named SexyKitten introduces us to the film’s unflinching rawness, though that scene, which takes an outrageous twist, at least manages to toe the line between repellant and hilarious). Her also does feel long, as Theodore and Samantha each move back and forth between wanting the other person and not wanting the other person a few times, when we, as the audience feel sure it ultimately can't work.

Content

F-words abound, and innuendos and sexual references abound even outside of the “sex scenes”—Her is very focused on the physical aspects of a relationship (not that it claims that’s all relationships are about, mind you). There are a few shots of a naked woman, and another scene in which Theodore engages in some heated foreplay with another woman he’s met up with. Basically, this is a thinking couple’s date-night film, and it’s very rated R.

Bottom Line

Thanks to brilliant writing and acting, Her overcomes the inherent weirdness of its main premise to the point that you barely even think about it, as the movie explores very real aspects of relationships and people’s innate desire for closeness with an honesty and intimacy most movies don’t. It’s raw and very R-rated, but you’ll be amazed how real everything is (plus you’ll want to hug Scarlett Johansson, who makes you fall in love with her without even showing her face).

Her (2013)

Written and Directed by Spike Jonze

Rated R

Length: 126 minutes