We live in a world of screens. There are now more screens and devices on this planet than there are humans. So it’s amazing how few of them there are in Spike Jonze’s “Her.”
Jonze’s film only invokes technology as a way to communicate the imperfect beauty of human nature. “Her” has a sci-fi high concept but it’s as true and honest a relationship movie as any ever made.
In Jonze’s near future, men don un-ironic mustaches, pants are beige and hitched high with no buttons or belt loops for style, walls and homes are pristine white and softly focused but not exaggeratedly so, and few people crane their necks staring down at cell phones. Everyone can be seen talking with head held high, but they’re speaking to indiscreet ear buds implanted in their sides, getting headlines and emails read aloud to them on the subway. In this new age Los Angeles, everyone is alone together.
Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) is just one face among the crowd. When we first meet him, his face is an especially large one. Jonze jarringly places Phoenix’s mug in a beautifully intimate close-up as he recites a searing, touching love letter. The rub is that it’s all a charade. The letter is to be sent from a woman to a man, and we learn that Theodore’s job is to craft “beautifully hand written” love letters for those who lack the time, and because he dictates them tenderly, it’s all the more complex an emotion.
Theodore is in the process of a divorce from his wife Catherine (Rooney Mara), who in his memories seems like a lovely, dark sprite. “I love you so much I’m going to fucking kill you,” she says while on top of him in bed. “Her” dovetails this line between sugary sweet and bizarre vulgarity all at once. The film gets laughs from a precious looking video game character hurling profanities at its player or a lonely sounding woman on a sex chat line begging for something unsavory, a line too surprising and funny for me to repeat here.
Theodore’s life changes when he buys OS1, the world’s first artificially intelligent operating system. It’s designed to interact with you and learn as you spend time with it. Jonze manifested this idea in pre-Siri days, and his creation is Samantha, a chipper and calming voice performed by Scarlett Johansson. That Samantha picked her own name and recognizes she’s funny is all we need to know about how Samantha grows.
Jonze makes Theodore and Samantha’s effortless connection as plain as day. Samantha doesn’t talk like a computer; she (it?) just has the capacity of one. She’s by his bedside at night, she’s there when he needs her and will unselfishly help with things before he’s even asked. The two slowly fall in love, and their bond is formed in a perfect moment of virtual, not visual, pleasure.
“Her” goes to miraculous depths and themes where another movie would be content to satire the contemporary parallels or mock this quirky act of affection. We soon feel compassion for Samantha as a figure who wonders if her feelings are even real, or just programmed. Jonze echoes that thought as it pertains to the wistful nature of human memory. “I fear I may only feel lesser versions of myself,” Theodore says. “The past is just a story we tell ourselves.”
But beyond its nuance in character, “Her” isn’t cynical about the act of technology or it loving you back. Another movie would string along a sentiment that real love is analog, not digital, wallowing in cynicism and plot contrivances like a new OS model being released or Theodore deciding to simply ignore his phone.
This is a movie so easy to fall in love with. Jonze shoots in deep focus and through windows and glass to achieve pixelated perfection. His interior shots move around the room with intimacy and grace, and the whole film emanates a certain level of light.
Theodore’s female companions each help to light up the room as well. Amy Adams plays a best friend with her own OS with whom to relate. Here she feels grown up and mature, an imperfect woman who is Theodore’s only real friend. Rooney Mara has a choice moment as one of the film’s few sources of negativity. And Johansson above all gives a full-bodied performance complete with emotion and range despite never appearing on camera. This too is another choice Jonze wisely makes that deepens the connection we feel with the character.
Perhaps best of all though is Phoenix. What a tenderly complex performance this is. “The Master” may be the best work he’s ever done, but in “The Master” he’s Acting with a Capital A. Jonze makes him vulnerable, warm and authentic.
“Her” defines what love is by showing the lack of control we have over it. Theodore ends up going without Samantha for stretches, not the other way around. It acknowledges that love isn’t intellectual or rational, but our attempts to define it and perfect the connection we have with someone is like asking the world of a cell phone. The film’s unexpectedly symbolic ending shows that we are creatures of the physical world, and the in-between we’ve tried to reach through technology is unattainable.
In Arcade Fire’s song “Reflektor,” Win Butler sings, “We fell in love when I was 19 and I was staring at a screen.” Arcade Fire provided the music for “Her,” but this is Jonze’s story. Falling in love while staring at a screen can be an act of beauty. It can show us just how deeply our love can go.
4 stars
Great review, notably the line of how easy it is to fall in love with this movie. Even though I had some minor issues, I kept thinking how much I liked it. Great review!