Sci-fi that doesn't feel like Sci-fi, Romance that isn't quite Romance

Rating: 9/10 (16 August 2015)

Technically speaking, Her is a sci-fi movie, because it's set in the near-future and explores the ramifications of technology. Yet it is much closer in spirit to a quirky romance. But as romances go, well, it's an odd one.
Taken as a romantic comedy-drama, its the engaging story of a guy, soured by failed relationships, meeting the perfect woman, and learning that relationships are always going to be work, no matter how perfect your mate. The movie has a lot to say about the complexity of relationships, and in some ways is mocking that whole "perfect person" trope.
The sci-fi twist is wonderful precisely because it doesn't care where A.I. stories have gone before. It's as though someone said, what if there'd never been a story about artificial intelligence and I had no clichés to fall back on? That's much of the reason why it doesn't have that sci-fi feel - it's closer to that odd Spike Jonez feel of movies like Being John Malkovich. Even good sci-fi tends to stay, for the most part, within certain conventions, but this movie neither follows those conventions nor ostentatiously refutes them. Her is it's own thing, and you should definitely watch it now.