(Warner Bros. Pictures)
There’s no denying it: On paper, Her sounds like an insufferably twee, if not fully creepy film. An overly sentimental, crestfallen man in the midst of a crippling divorce falls in love with his Siri. That’s the basic premise of Her, the latest directorial opus from Spike Jonze.
And in the hands of any other director, Her could so easily have fallen into the trappings of a clumsy, buffoonish Adam Sandler-esque comedy or a preposterously twee, hollow romantic comedy. But Jonze—who has firmly established a talent for evoking natural sensitivity and authentic human emotion in wildly inventive settings (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Where The Wild Things Are) —injects enough of his trademark idiosyncrasies along with a charming inquisitiveness about the nature of human connection, that the film never comes off as hokey or gimmicky. This is an old-fashioned, heartfelt love story.
Set in a not-too-distant future Los Angeles, the world Jonze carves out in Her isn’t totally far-fetched: our increasing dependency on technology has been taken a step further as most everyone walks around with an earbud in, wired to an all-in-one neo-smartphone that connects its user to literally everything that the online world has to offer. Enter Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), a sensitive, heartbroken romantic whose day job as a surrogate letter writer finds him writing heartfelt, poetic notes to lovers and family members from all over the world under the guise of someone else. He’s very good at it, if you couldn’t guess. But Theodore’s life has been largely null ever since his wife, Catherine (Rooney Mara), left him a year ago. He spends his nights passing the time playing an immersive video game and getting off on phone sex hookups. That is until he opts to buy a new operating system that boasts artificial intelligence. The OS, who names herself Samantha (voiced, remarkably, by Scarlett Johansson), quickly adapts to Theodore’s lifestyle and personality, and it doesn’t take long for a romance to develop between man and disembodied female voice.
(Warner Bros.)
Though the romance that develops between Theodore and Samantha is quick, it never feels inauthentic — but that’s the point, really. Samantha’s software is programmed to become attuned to Theodore’s personality and need. But while it’s easy to see how Theodore, vulnerable as he is, can easily fall for the perfectly designed woman (except, you know, without the physicality), it’s when Samantha becomes sentient and self-aware that film starts to feel less like a man-robot love story and a person-person love story.
Like any on-and-offscreen couple, Theodore and Samantha have their ups and downs, and Jonze masterfully captures their relationship in both the excitement of its infancy and the point where that excitement begins to plateau. Jonze smartly toggles with the struggles of a man trying to maintain a healthy relationship with someone (or something) that doesn’t technically exist by injecting enough self-aware humor into the silliness of his central premise. But in order for the film to work, one has to buy that there’s a real connection there, and that’s where Her shines—not just in its execution, but in the breezy, assured performances by Phoenix and Johansson’s voice.
Drenched in starkly represented neutral colors—blue, gray, and the often soft orange glow of a gorgeous sunrise or sunset—Her is another visual treat from Jonze. The sleek, but not-too-out-there representation of future L.A. lends itself to the film’s overarching theme: A treatise of sorts on the nature of loneliness and finding deep emotional connections in the most alienating of times. As much as Jonze may be making grand statements on technology, on society, and on establishing human connections, at its core, Her is an apt reminder about the central thing that makes falling in love so thrilling: The emotional connection between two psyches. The rest is periphery.
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Her
Written and Directed by Spike Jonze
With Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara
Rated R for Language, Brief Graphic Nudity and Sexual Content
Now playing in select theaters.
