New Release Review: 'Her'

How quickly you get onboard Spike Jonze's Her depends on how bearable/cutesy you find the name Theodore Twombly (played by the ever-awkward Joaquin Phoenix) and how effective/thematically-pointed you find his job. The year is 2025 but feels like 2015, if Apple were allowed to design the world for a year. Theodore is about to be newly divorced, has a circle of friends so small that it's more of a triangle, and compounds his relative isolation by spending his days writing love letters for the emotionally tongue-tied; neatly keeping himself from dealing with his own stunted emotions. Doubling down on his hermetic life Theodore buys the latest OS ('operating system'), which comes with an enticing new feature: artificial intelligence. His OS chooses the name Samantha (and is voiced with surprising range and depth by the often one-note Scarlett Johansson). Samantha is funny, sharp, and (not surprising given the casting) rather sexy. But ultimately she's a disembodied voice constrained by the small (and of course immaculately designed) box that contains her being. A modern day genie in a bottle.

Thanks to some deft writing and great performances the film skips past a lot of problematic questions about what Samantha is. Theodore likes her, trusts her, perhaps even loves her, but the moment you think of what she is, Theodore's very own genie, personally created for him based on his answers to a handful of questions (such as the always reliable 'What's your relationship like with your mother'), the whole dynamic seems even more warped than it already is. Part of that is intentional. Samantha literally belongs to Theodore. He owns her. How many people have said the same of their other halfs? (Even if they didn't mean it quite as literally as Theodore.) There are other knowing relationship parallels, such as Samantha's emotional growth and evolution beginning to outstrip Theodore's. Later in the film, in one perfectly written scene which echoes so many break-ups, Theodore asks if she's talking to anyone else (rather than the usual enquiry of whether she's sleeping with anyone else), and the answer feels painfully true despite its science fiction twist.

Jonze recently said that Her isn't about our relationship with technology, it just uses technology to find a new way to explore relationships. Which rather fudges the truth. There are one too many cut aways of crowds flowing past Theodore, talking on their phones or just scanning them, keeping themselves apart. Isolated. No one looks 'connected'; they look alone. By falling for an operating system is Theodore the same, or is his relationship real? Jonze toys with the question but ultimately takes any choice out of Theodore's hands. Possibly because even he doesn't know.

Making the whole thing go down with more ease than it probably ought is Hoyte van Hoytema's beautiful cinematography. The film pops with bright bold colours, reds, yellows, oranges, evocative of late summer (or perhaps just of iPhone ads). Which goes some way to selling this not quite future.

Her isn't as unique as its premise initially seems (Ruby Sparks plays with similar ideas and is well worth hunting down), but it is surprisingly touching. With a clearer voice it might have ranked alongside Jonze's best. Instead it's just very very good.

Overall: 8/10