I'm sad. The computer I was in love with ran off with the toaster!

Rating: 1/10 (25 January 2014)

When I first saw the trailer for this movie I thought the idea looked a bit silly. But with the hype and hoopla, the Golden Globe Nominations, the Oscar Nominations, well, hey, I could have been wrong. Unfortunately, I wasn't. This (so far) is the most overrated film of the year.
First the good things. The cinematography was wonderful, and I overall liked the look and feel of the film. No loopy, shaky, out of place camera sequences. Just long and subtle movements, deft editing and beautiful pictures. Well done. The other thing I really liked was the fact that the technology, although elegantly advanced, was very well founded. You could definitely see how we could there from here, and that lent a great deal of credibility to the film.
However, I failed to see the point of it all. About 30 minutes into the film, I really thought I could have been wrong, and I saw some glimmer of hope. But the utterly ludicrous plot (presented straight forward and without apology) of a man falling in love with an operating system was just too much. I found myself laughing at unintentional humor and riffing on the film ala MST3K. There was nothing touching or romantic about any of this - it was just as silly as the trailer. Same old story. Man falls in love with computer, computer breaks up with him and runs off with the toaster. The film comes across as pretentious and bloated. Way too self important to really connect with me. Some scenes were embarrassing. The "sex" scene comes to mind as well as the "double date" with the other couple. I laughed until I stopped.
On the acting side, Amy Adams was fine in her limited role, but Joaquin Phoenix seemed to be channeling nerdy Johnny Galecki from The Big Bang Theory. All I could think of was that "this is what Hollywood thinks modern men are like."
In what is shaping up to be an off year (IMHO) for films, this is my least favorite of the films nominated for Best Picture that I've seen. But that's only because August:Osage County was not nominated for Best Picture!