Overlong and boring

Rating: 6/10 (21 February 2014)

Following his marriage breaking up, Theodore Twombley (Joaquin Phoenix) finds himself very taken with the artificial intelligence operating system in his computer update which adopts a female human personality named Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). He falls in love with her and she with him, and the film charts the ups and downs of their relationship.
Self-aware AIs are an interesting fictional concept, and have not been overused, so this was a good idea. Unfortunately, the relationship between a man and a voice from a computer/mobile phone is inherently uncinematic, and the film lasts over two hours. So, if your idea of a good time is 120 minutes of close-ups of Joaquin Phoenix (with a bad moustache) going backwards and forwards between twittery schoolgirl mode and anguished betrayed lover mode (and all stops in between) while Scarlett Johansson talks dirty and is never seen, then this film is exactly what you have been waiting for. Me? Not so much.
Johansson's voice work is excellent and Phoenix is good (as other the rest of the cast), but this story is not executed well at all. There are a couple of cringeworthy phone sex sequences, Twombley (one of the worst names ever coined for a romantic protagonist) is unsympathetic to start off with, no effort has been made to make the story cinematic, it is far too long, and it is boring.
Not recommended.