I Love Her

One of the perks of being married to a newly-inducted Writer's Guild member is getting to see movies earlier than most. Last night we had the privilege of attending an advanced screening of Spike Jonze's newest film, Her. I haven't been able to stop smiling since.

Her is set in a lovely, clean, bright and futuristic LA, (which I've read was partly filmed in China). Technology has advanced to tiny ear pieces in which humans can speak directly to their own Operating Systems and command tasks like, "Read Email" or "Play melancholy song."

We meet our hero Theodore Twombly, (Joaquin Phoenix) a brooding writer reeling from a soon-to-be-finalized divorce from his childhood sweetheart. Theodore's ability to empathize makes it easy for him to make his living writing other people's letters at beautifulhandwrittenletters.com - a bright and cheery office in which writers dictate letters to their computer and authentic handwritten letters are then generated and mailed.

Theodore struggles with the concept of moving forward after his failed marriage and has a difficult time connecting with anyone except his best friend Amy, (Amy Adams) who is struggling within her own marriage. In a society in which technology is one of the biggest forms of entertainment, education and above all, communication, it's easy to imagine that people are having issues with actual human interactions and connections.

Enter Samantha, (the voice of Scarlett Johansson) - the upgraded Operating System with an incredibly life-like personality capable of mimicking human emotions all while cleaning up your hard drive and reminding you to get to that meeting on time! Theodore is understandably standoffish at first, but quickly falls under the charm of Samantha's amazing ability to, well, connect. What happens throughout the remainder of the film is both beautiful and poetic. Without the ability to connect physically, Samantha and Theodore spend the entire film connecting verbally - telling stories, sharing experiences and expressing ideas. Surprisingly it's the most realistic romantic tale I've ever seen/heard on screen that other films tend to skip over. Most other films lazily take for granted that audience members accept the concept of love coming so easily and with so little need for authentic story telling.

Spike Jonze and the incredibly talented cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema create a beautiful environment for Joaquin Phoenix to run around, smiling, laughing and generally finding true happiness again. I found myself grinning ear to ear for over half of this movie.

As you may be able to guess, falling in love with your self aware OS comes with great difficulty and this is no exception. While I knew it may not have the happiest of endings for Theodore and Samantha, I was over the moon with how Jonze handled the loss. It was lovely, realistic and, well, incredibly human.