Yes, But Will He COMMIT?

Rating: 7/10 (16 January 2015)

Los Angeles in a not-too-distant future in which life goes on much as it does today but with less smog and far more advanced technology. The art direction is exceptional. A précis of the plot would look like the outline for a Bill Murray comedy. Joaquin Phoenix, a writer and nerd, plugs into an "operating system" that is his alone. The OS's voice is that of Scarlett Johansson. There is no mistaking that husky chuckle.
Her name is Samantha and she has access to everything on Phoenix's hard drive. Further, he doesn't need to play around with keyboards. He communicates with her, and she with him, through a small earplug. And he has a miniature camera, tucked in his pocket or at his bed side, so Johansson can see what he's looking at and comment on it. After a moment of disbelief, his few friends accept the arrangement. He brings Samantha along on a double date so the four of them can chat and play games together.
Phoenix has been recently divorced. It was the kind of divorce known as "amicable", not like my divorce, which was "unamicable", although my last divorce had less physical dimension than my first two. Johansson, from the beginning, is chipper and efficient, a great secretary who does what she's told and provides useful commentary. She even organizes some of his writing, without telling him, and sends it to an agreeable publisher.
Phoenix and Johansson's voice fall in love, what else? They have a kind of cyber sex. She becomes as horny as he is. They tell each other jokes and form a mutual adoration society.
But Phoenix has a problem. He's an uneasy introvert and doesn't want to commit himself to a relationship, so while she's experiencing emotions for the first time and blooming like a morning glory, he's beginning to wonder if it's such a hot idea to fall in love with his laptop.
By now, she's sensitive to his moods and his tone of voice. "Is there something wrong? We haven't had sex lately." His reply is typically masculine. "Oh, you know how it is. I've been busy lately, and every relationship has its honeymoon period." Phoenix gets more uneasy, and Johansson more puzzled and demanding. "What the F*** is WRONG with you!" I was terribly disturbed by the use of the F Bomb. Everybody seems to fling the word about in this movie, men and women alike. Is this what the future is going to be? Why, when I was a young feller a-sparkin' a gal, nobody cussed, not even the boys, not even the D word or the H word. Why, I swan, when I was a chile, we didn't even know what the F Bomb MEANT. We thunk it had something to do with sheep.
I'm making the film sound funnier that it is, though it has its comic moments. It's really pretty melancholy in tone because, although they love each other, Johansson has come to have feelings that include others as well as Phoenix. It's harder for him to get in touch with her. While she used to be his alone, she now multi-tasks and has thousands of others to deal with. On top of that, some fanatical groups have begun to reconstruct real historical figures that now occupy the same cybernetic space as Johansson. The first hint that Phoenix gets of all this is when Johansson introduces him to the silky baritone of Alan Watts. (Kids, you'll have to Google Alan Watts. Google Gregory Bateson while you're at it.)
Phoenix is naturally jealous and deeply disappointed. Johansson is the only woman -- or rather Operating System -- that he's ever really loved and now she's drifting away, although she still loves him, arguing that just because she loves others doesn't mean that she doesn't love him too. (I've heard a similar argument made about God.) By the end, Johansson has expanded and become part of a different kind of universe, an intangible and impalpable ether, rather like the hero of "The Incredible Shrinking Man." This may be hard to believe but there are some effective and touching moments in the evolution of their affair, as the enact what must be a common human emotional trajectory. Really, you can sense Johansson's desperation and Phoenix's growing loneliness as the distance between them grows.
Spike Jonze, who wrote and directed it, has made a truly original film. It's only noticeable weakness is a tendency for the dialog to drop to the level of some afternoon soap opera. "I apologize for not being there for you, and for all the responsibilities I put upon you." That sort of thing, a little of which goes a long long way.
Phoenix is pretty good in the central role. He certainly LOOKS the part with his tentative mustache and rimmed glasses. Sometimes his lines come out in a mumble that's not easy to translate. His best role was that of the incredibly stupid high school kid in "To Die For." Here, he gets matched up with four or five accessible women, all of them good looking, including Johansson, Olivia Wilde, and Amy Adams. It's a thought-provoking film. The thought it provokes is: "Where do I get one of these Operating Systems?"