Love is a multi-pronged adapter

Rating: 6/10 (30 December 2013)

The film is aptly named. The "her" of the story, the OS with Scarlet Johansson's voice in Joaquin Phoenix's ear, is by far the most developed character of the story. And she just keeps getting more developed--which is the trick of the film.
Phoenix is a well-played everyschlub. He smiles a lot. He puts more of his emotions into the fake love letters he writes for other people than he does into his personal life and human relationships. Just like some people put more of their true personality into anonymous posts on the internet.
The Johansson voice-character is Pinocchio with AI. She wants to be human. Desperately. There is a terrific scene where she tries to adopt a human body by getting a young woman to "play" her at Joaquin Phoenix's apartment. For me, it was the movie's best scene hands down.
Phoenix's character will never be able to consummate his thing with his OS, which is more troubling to her than it is to him. He's pretty content to live in his head with a voice that waits on him hand and foot--kind of.