Best original screenplay in a while

Rating: 9/10 (5 March 2014)

Jonze's script is smattered with ideas that add to the texture of her. Many scenes show Theodore strolling through the streets, persons around him with their heads down, occupied with their ear pieces. An all-too-familiar image in today's phone-obsessed culture that paints a kind of low-key, apocalyptic picture. The director takes a few jabs at gaming culture too — in the future, video games finally give up and just let all the characters scream swear words, racist insults, and misogynistic non sequiturs familiar to anyone who has spent time playing Call of Duty multiplayer.
Her's moral questions dig even deeper than the idea of man/machine relationships. Late in the film, Samantha introduces Theodore to an OS pieced together by the writings of a deceased philosopher. Programmers have revived the dead in A.I. form. And somehow, that's less advanced than what the operating systems are doing on their own.
Her is staggering in scope while exploring the tiniest facets of intimacy and attraction. Phoenix's introspection thrives in Jonze's living, breathing sci-fi landscape, accompanied by Arcade Fire's soft piano melodies that feel like Theodore's own digital signal. her builds and builds in unexpected ways as it climbs towards a profound conclusion, as messy, passionate, impactful relationships always do. Examining his own life, Theodore tells Amy that he worries, "I have felt everything I want to feel." her digs into that rumination, stretching it across the past, present, and future.
The masterfully done science fiction film her features a remarkable performance from Joaquin Phoenix and a moving, intelligent story directed with restraint by Spike Jonze.