Review - Her

Her is a prime example of a short-film concept stretched like rubber for a full length film

Its time to sleep!

I haven't seen much of Spike Jonze's directorial features (to name one, Adaptation, which bored me to sleep). His scripts are mostly written by Charlie Kaufman, but this time he helmed the writer seat for his next venture - a futuristic science fiction comedy drama about a man who falls in love with his Operating System (or iPhone's 100x improved Siri, whatever). And the prime reason for this romance between a human and machine is voice of Scarlett Johansson. Boy, her voice is sexy.

Our protagonist is Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), who is an introvert, loner and a complete bore. He works in a firm whose employees write hertfelt letters for people who do not  have time to write. He writes really good, as we are told. But good love-letter writing doesn't means a good marital life, so he is about to get divorced from his childhood sweetheart Cathrine (Rooney Mara). He is sad. He is melancholic. He barely speaks up his mind. He plays a video-game with an abusive little character. He engages in phone sex. In short, he is prime candidate to fall in love with the next living thing(or non-living, in this case).

Enter Samantha, sexy, smart, funny computer OS with Scarlett's voice. Theodore is delighted. She arranges his work, his meetings (I don't think he had many though) and she reads her emails (professional and private ones). Samantha is non-judgemental, considerate and highly respecting towards Theodore. They fall in love.

But as soon as they start dating (and voice-sexing, if there is any thing like it), things start to really drag. The film with all soft tones and moody atmospheric score, at first is captivating, but for 2 hours, it is major ingredient for sleep. On a conceptual level, its all intriguing, but come on, it is weird. You really cannot make a human being, no matter how introverted or shut out, fall in love with a voice. Without a face. Without a body.

Joaquin Phoenix's Theodore has limited range of expressions - sad, more sad, smiling but yet sad -  which may put Edward (of Twilight) to shame. Of course, it was the script's requirement. Amy Adams is sleepwalking in this sleep inducing film. Rooney Mara appears and disappear, like a ghost. Only Scarlett's Samantha is an 'alive' thing, which is ironic since she is an OS.

Spike Jonze's Her might have won hearts all over the world. But I don't think I am ready to acknowledge the whole 'human-computer' love thing. Its illogical. But films are not always about logic, so Her may just pass as a failed experiment for me.

2/5