Her

Rating: 7/10 (23 February 2014)

Enjoyable film with an indie feel to it. While I'm sure it has generated many 'what it means to be human' debates, I feel that question has been dealt with enough already so I'm less interested in that aspect than the 'what if' element of an intelligent Operating System that 'grows' emotionally and learns to replicate human emotion.
The film was generally a good watch and it has been filmed in a very attractive manner that is very enjoyable to stare at. Despite this, there were moments when I felt it was going on too long and was feeling a bit drawn out.
It was exciting to see how Jonze played out the story and for the most part it was fun and interesting. Some bits were absolutely cringe-worthy though, such as the 'sex' scene. It was also hard to suspend disbelief at some points when the OS was having experiences that were far too human and not really realistic, for example, talking about being able to feel Joaquin's touch (and even worse in the sex scene!) when it isn't possible for an OS to experience touch since it doesn't have touch receptors or nerves or anything that it would need to be able to feel a touch. So it's just words, or, if you like, lies. But the film does not investigate this element and just lets it pass by, which is a shame and the film is therefore guilty of not fully investigating its own subject matter.
I did think that the film was going to end with the revelation that everything the OS did was 'false', i.e. that it never experienced any of the emotions it said it did and that it was just programmed to say certain things and behave in a certain way. But this never happened, leaving the suggestion that the OS really did grow, feel, experience and become independent. It's a bit too far fetched, even if it is set in the near future. An OS could never know what it feels like to have sex, it can only say that it has. But the film was presented to us in a way that made me feel I was supposed to believe the OS was really feeling and experiencing these things.
It's not a film I could view over and over but it would be good to watch again some point, both for aesthetic reasons and also to discuss with friends. At some point in the future we will also be able to compare the ideas in this film with the inevitable appearance of real-life OS systems that are like the ones presented in this film and that will be an interesting comparison.
One final point to mention, I did think Joaquin's performance was very good and I was not expecting to like him in it. However there was a moment or two when he reminded me of one of the characters in The Big Bang Theory though (not a programme I ever intentionally watch), and I wondered if he'd watched the programme as part of his research into 'geeks'!