Movie Review: HER

Spike Jonze has created a devastating masterpiece with Her. I can't think of another film that made me see and think about the world around me in the ways that Her has and will continue to do. The setting is LA and the film is about falling in love and technology and sex and friendship and falling out of love, all universal, everyday concepts but Jonze created something so special and so interesting, a future that is instantly recognizable, inevitable, even. Angelinos go about their day but they do it even further separated from each other than now. They all have earbuds that connect to the device in their pocket and that team connects their user to the entirety of the internet and beyond. Theodore Twombly uses it to listen to sad music and look at nude pictures of famous naked women. Joaquin Phoenix embodies Twombly better than anyone else imaginable, he is the picture of dejected humanity, hunched over and hiding behind a big mustache and glasses and high-waisted pants as he sits alone in his apartment playing video games and thinking about his estranged wife. His voice is warbly and wounded, he has insulated himself from the world and what he has to say is better said in writing, perfect for a man whose job is to write letters for people who don't do it themselves. He lives a simple life but is the voice of dozens of relationships and is well known for his beautiful writing, most notably by his coworker Paul (Chris Pratt) who is the last bastion of joy and enthusiasm in this world. Paul wishes he would get letters as beautiful as the ones that Theo writes.

Theodore Twombly is intrigued by an advertisement for a new system entitled OS1, billed as the most realistic and advanced system to date. The voice that comes online is the light, breathy, friendly voice of Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). Theo is amused at how instantly Samantha can insert herself into his life, but she soon wins him over. Samantha, like Theo, is in a weird place in life, she is aware of herself as a person existing in the world, but she struggles with the fact that she does not have a human body, so does she really exist? Samantha finds herself evolving and growing with Theodore, they help each other discover different parts of themselves and the world that they had never been in touch with before. Their relationship, like Samantha, like Theo, evolves and changes into something familiar, yet oddly alien and it begs the same question, What defines love, or a relationship, or humanity?

Theodore's relationships with other humans are just as complicated and they provide the most recognizable entry points for those who find themselves relating to Theo. His ex wife Catherine (Rooney Mara) is impossibly beautiful and quirky, but sad and unwilling to share her life with him anymore. He spends a lot of his time remembering when they were good together and even Samantha is still jealous of her. His best and only friend is Amy (Amy Adams), a game designer who has her own relationship problems. From the first time we see them together, there is a sort of weird chemistry in the air, an unspoken understanding of grief as if they're both here against their will, but willing to wait for it to get better. Amy understands Theo, but they keep their distance while they go about their own separate lives and cope in their own ways. His friendship with Paul is carefree and fun, the two of them end up as half of a double date on Catalina Island while their girlfriends get to know each other laid out on a picnic blanket. Paul brings Theo up a notch or two but they all pale in comparison to Samantha, for she is the only one who can really make Theo enjoy life.

The movie works best when it shows us how age old concepts like love and sex adapt and evolve with the world. The time is somewhere in the near future, but there aren't flying cars or hoverboards, just the inevitable crawl of technology and it's effect on those who use it. There were a few moments where I could feel the crowd shifting uncomfortably in their seats as Theodore navigates his world. The taboo is still prevalent, a man in a relationship with an Operating System, and you could feel the tension and awkwardness in the air inside the theater during some of the more raw emotional scenes. The funniest scene in the film comes when Theo tries to engage an anonymous fellow insomniac in a late night chat. SexyKitten (Kristen Wiig) has some interesting fetishes that get her off and Theo goes with it because that's what he's there for. Like relationships, sex is not necessarily relegated to just two living people anymore. Jonze creates a world where the wealth of technology and the ability for it to be at hand instantaneously both expands and contracts the world around us. It is an uncanny representation of what the world will look like very soon and it's not frightening, just lonely. The perils of humanity will still be there; the feelings of loss and rejection, loneliness and disenchantment, memories and dreams, for better or worse. The climactic scene of Samantha and Theodore's relationship is heartbreaking and beautiful and devastating and humorous in so many ways, mostly because of how familiar it feels and what it will stir up in you. You can't help but feel for Theodore, our avatar in this brave new world, beta testing the future and showing us what it will look like, but more importantly, what it will feel like.