HER (Spike Jonze, 2013) **1/2

Rating: 6/10 (14 February 2014)

The second (out of nine) from this year's crop of Best Picture Oscar nominees I have watched so far is this quirky romance that is strenuously made in the style of the same director's previous "Oscar bait" movies, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (1999) and ADAPTATION (2002) – except that here he wrote the Oscar-nominated script himself, as opposed to relying on regular collaborator Charlie Kaufman (now a director himself). What we have here is a wistful futuristic tale, set against an appropriately cold, glassy Oscar-nominated production design, about a lonely electronic letter 'narrator' (my words) – played by Joaquin Phoenix – who is currently going through a divorce from wife Rooney Mara. He is friends with a couple (one of whom is documentarian Amy Adams) who also have their own matrimonial issues and eventually split up.
Before long, Phoenix acquires an ultra-intelligent computer (called "OS", that is to say, "Operating System") to keep him company; however, since this – voiced by Scarlett Johansson – begins, in true HAL 9000-style, to display genuine human emotions, he ends up falling for it! To be fair to the protagonist, he does attempt normal dates (with an unaccountably stunning female to boot) – but they invariably fail to live up to the 'perfection' offered by Samantha (as the computer names itself – perhaps a remnant of executive producer Samantha Morton having been Jonze's original choice to voice Phoenix's OS) which, missing only a body, of her own accord hires a substitute to 'make love' to Phoenix! Meanwhile he begins to have second thoughts about his impending divorce and Adams also goes through this same renewal of love through electronics
For one thing, there was no reason to extend this 'one-trick pony' tale to over two hours' duration; while the script is undeniably insightful about human relations and the way they have been altered by increasingly user-friendly technology, it also comes across as irritatingly superficial when dealing with what it perceives will come to pass as real life: people speaking to a computer in the streets or playing interactive video games at home, not to mention engaging in virtual intercourse with their PC and hiring professionals to dictate their letters for them. Indeed, does an archaic job like this even have to exist in this day and age? Or, in the words of a close friend of mine, "Who today writes letters anymore?" The film's two other Oscar nods are for Best Original Song (co-written by Jonze) and Best Music Score (courtesy of contemporary cult Canadian band Arcade Fire).