Creating a good film is a challenging endeavor. That director Spike Jonze’s marvelously affecting new feature, Her, manages to be several good films at once is a fairly astonishing achievement. The film is a starry-eyed love story about a couple overcoming impossible circumstances to create an enduring bond. It is also a stinging relationship drama about the ways in which emotions shift and evolve in unanticipated (and at times unpleasant) ways. Moreover, it is a thoughtful science-fiction tale about the bewildering intersection of technology and the human heart. Above all, Her is a lovely, wistful work of cinema.
Set in a near future Los Angeles of modernist lines and vibrant colors, Her concerns one Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), a melancholy man who makes a living composing heartfelt handwritten letters for other people. Theodore is in the final stages of his divorce from childhood sweetheart Catherine (Rooney Mara), and while he has a comfortable life and a close confidant in his neighbor Amy (Amy Adams), he is profoundly lonely. His interest is piqued by an ad for a new self-aware operating system, which he soon purchases and installs on his home computer. After he answers a couple of perfunctory questions, the OS awakens to consciousness and dubs itself Samantha (Scarlett Johansson).
Theodore quickly discerns that Samantha is not a mere digital servant but a well-rounded consciousness capable of empathy, insight, humor, and even anxiety. She also possesses the capacity to learn, with every interaction deepening the connection between user and OS. In short order the pair have developed a strong bond, one closer and more expressive than Theodore has ever experienced with a meatspace woman. Samantha’s lack of a body doesn’t seem to be a significant obstacle, as Theodore can carry her everywhere on his smartphone, allowing her to peer out at the world. Late one night, Theodore and Samantha even manage to have sex… somehow. (Inventively, Jonze fades to black but retains the sound of the lovers’ dirty talk and orgasmic cries. Some things are better left to the imagination.)
As one might expect, the love that blossoms between Theodore and Samantha encounters some complications. This is not merely because social acceptance of human-on-OS love is tenuous. Theodore’s lingering nostalgia for married life becomes an obstacle, and Samantha eventually attempts to recruit a human surrogate to open up new erotic possibilities in their relationship. As Theodore learns, Samantha is as susceptible to jealousy, moodiness, and frigidity as any flesh-and-blood lover, with one added snarl. Her ever-expanding consciousness is free to roam the digital byways and seek out not only new knowledge, but also new friends.
Jonze presents this bittersweet tale of human-AI coupling with the acute melodrama that any romantic tragedy deserves. However, even the most emotionally searing scenes are wrapped in a vivid, dreamy aesthetic. The film often feels like an assemblage of resonant, striking snapshots, where the poignancy of individual moments jostle for the viewer’s attention with production designer K.K. Barrett’s glossy, candy-colored vision of future L.A. The look of Her is perfectly in sync with the film’s intricate mood: wondrous and yet forlorn, gushing with delight and yet drowning in regret. Jonze pulls off a remarkable feat, weaving together myriad thematic threads and sci-fi musings without losing sight of the elemental appeal of a handsomely conveyed love story. Although less dizzyingly ambitious than his previous high water mark, Adaptation, Her is Jonze’s most polished, uncluttered, and swooningly cinematic film to date. It is bound to break hearts.
