The 86th Academy Awards are almost upon us, and although contenders like American Hustle and 12 Years A Slave are great movies, my bid for Best Picture goes to Spike Jonze’s “Her.”
“Her” is the first original screenplay from Spike Jonze, known for his directorial role in “Where the Wild Things Are” and “Being John Malkovich.” Although advertised as a man-meets-computer romance movie, in Jonze’s hands it is much more, at times becoming a meditation on loneliness, relationships and trans-humanism.
The main character Theodore Twombley, played by the remarkably awkward (perfectly cast) Joaquin Phoenix, lives in a near-futuristic Los Angeles that is warm, vintage and pedestrian-friendly. He stumbles across a welcoming, Apple-esque booth advertising OS 1, an artificial intelligence that can evolve through new experiences.
At first, Theodore is skeptical of the idea of talking to his computer, but Scarlett Johansson, as the voice of the OS Samantha, brings intelligence and emotional depth to a role that could have easily become a farce. However, Samantha is not the only girl in Twombley’s life. He still hasn’t divorced his ex-wife, struggles on a date and finds friendship with a game developer friend. More so than just the simple story of infatuation of a man to a computer or a hackneyed metaphor warning of the perils of technology closing us off from others, “Her” is about Twombley’s various relationships, romantic and platonic.
Phoenix’s acting here is superb, encapsulating the adrift and dependent mental state of Twombley, carrying the movie (as a great deal of the movie are long shots of his face in conversation with Samantha).I found myself intensely focused on scenes in which Phoenix was alone in a room talking on an earpiece. On the other end of the earpiece, Johansson delivers as nuanced of a character as I’ve seen in any movie, despite never having any physical presence on screen. It’s a testament to Johansson’s acting and Jonze’s screenplay that she can come across as such a realized human being.
Despite the sci-fi premise, “Her” is at its heart a showcase of the evolution of human contact. The fantastic score from Arcade Fire, alongside Hoyte van Hoytema’s fantastic cinematography, make “Her” a movie that is as visually and auditorily astounding as it is mentally and emotionally draining. It’s a must-watch for anyone looking for a movie to pick apart and really think about.