how many times can I fall in love with this film?

Rating: 9/10 (27 February 2014)

2014 will go down in history as one of the greatest single year for films; it has proved to be a year that truly offers a spectacular selection of talent and genius, laid out before us for our film enthusiast ravenous consumption of each and every one of them. With the likes of; the historical epic set in the times of slavery in 12 Years of a slave, Gravity a monstrous journey into the far reaches of space and Dallas Buyers Club a welcome return to the silver screen for Matthew Mconaughey. Each of them, are absolutely excellent and will thus make the race for the Best Picture Oscar an undeniably thrilling, compulsive watch, but for me the only true stand out competitor for Best Picture is Her written/directed by Spike Jones, a fantastic exploration of love in the future, but really behind the futuristic gadget and gizmo's, it is really a film that shines a satirical mirror against our very own society wedged in between a war involving love and computers in a fight for a place in our hearts.
Her tells the story of introverted writer (Joaquin Phoenix) of love card and letters, which is ironic when you consider his life is void of all love, but that soon changes in the most extraordinary of circumstances when he falls in love with his computer's highly advanced operating system voiced by Scarlet Johansson, yet your left wondering if the tin man can actually have a heart, as they grow closer and closer together; but is she really reciprocating the same feelings like a human being would or is that simply just in her or it's programming?
While other reviews I simply had to use my mind and finger tips to write, whereas on the other hand; reviewing Her for me is like opening my heart and soul and allowing it to do the writing for me, because to simply put it, how Joaquin Phoenix feel in love with his computer is how I have fallen in love with Her. A beautiful multi-layered story, that operates on so many different levels; it appeals to your heart via the marvellously sculpted characters and the performance behind them (there gotta be Oscar for voice over work right?), the way it has so much to say about our modern world and whether this over reliance on the digital phenomena is actually good for humanity in the long run. Finally, it is filled with Oscar nominated stunning set pieces and production design, as well as dazzling cinematography that almost makes you feel as if you fell as sleep and work up in the middle of a Picasso gallery, but I wonder if the drenching of the colour orange in the film was intentional or by accident. But the one drawback I couldn't help ignoring, was that I felt the story was to linear and didn't offer much subplot in the way of Amy Adams who plays Joaquin Phoenix best friend, because I felt it would have been really interesting to see how her relationship with the operating system developed and how her marriage degraded, which I felt what of added more emotional richness to the Her palette.