Review: Her
Film: Her
Release: 14 February'14
Genre: Romance/Sci-fi
Duration: 2h 6m
Director: Spike Jonze
Writer: Spike Jonze
Storyline: A sensitive and soulful man earns a living by writing personal letters for other people. Left heartbroken after his marriage ends, Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) becomes fascinated with a new operating system that reportedly develops into an intuitive and unique entity in its own right. He starts the program and meets "Samantha" (Scarlett Johansson), whose bright voice reveals a sensitive, playful personality. Though "friends" initially, the relationship soon deepens into love.
Review: This is all laid out with superb craft (the cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema takes the understated tones he applied to 2011's "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and adds a dreamy creamy quality to them so that even the smog layering the Shanghai skyline that sometimes stands in for Los Angeles here has a vaguely enchanted quality) and imagination. If there's a "but," it's that the movie can sometimes seem a little too pleased with itself, its sincerity sometimes communicating a slightly holier-than-thou preciosity, like some of those one-page features that so cutely dot the literary magazine "The Believer." As in, you know, OF COURSE, Theo plays the ukulele. And I'm still torn as to whether the idea of a business specializing in "Beautifully Handwritten Letters' is cutely twee or repellently cynical or some third thing that I might not find a turnoff. For all that, though, "Her" remains one of the most engaging and genuinely provocative movies you're likely to see this year, and definitely a challenging but not inapt date movie.
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