Not as intelligent as it would have us try and believe

Rating: 6/10 (21 July 2014)

You know, I am beginning to think that a great deal of critics, both professional and amateur, really have no self determination. I truly believe that there is a large chunk of them who jump on the "it's great" bandwagon because that's the cool thing to do. This has been a year for trumping up underwhelming fare from Hollywood. From the "slavery is bad" unsubtle baseball bat blow that was 12 Years a Slave to the excruciatingly underwhelming Casino-lite dross that was American Hustle, we have seen a year where the best and most creative movies get pushed aside for those that manage to generate hype and acclaim like a rock tumbling down a hill picking up moss. Her is very much along these lines.
Now, don't get me wrong. This is not a bad film per se. But it's not one that deserves the praise it is getting....and I think a lot of that praise comes from the self anointed intelligentsia who watch it and convince themselves that there is more to see than there actually is. No there aren't layers upon layers of subtle meaning here, and there are a great many movies that offer just that, and more, that are just ignored or lost to time.
I think my biggest problem here was finding a connection with the piece. When I started to watch it I felt like I was going to have a real connection with this character because I not too long ago had a similar breakup to the one Theodore goes through in flashback. Therefore I assumed that I could see myself looking to fill the void left behind after a core and valuable part of one's life is lost. But as the movie went on and Theodore's relationship developed beyond filling a gap I began to detach from the story.
Let's be honest here. The picture can be summed up thusly, what if Apple's Siri had sentience? There really isn't more to it than that and it's a story told many times before in cinema and science fiction, and told much more effectively than this. The movie is a contrived attempt to cleverly predict the near future and our advancing technological dependence - but if people are looking for subtle nuances, there really isn't anything beyond that...and, again, predicting the advance of technology is hardly a new idea. Once you get past these gimmicks you realise that the story is astonishingly basic and, frankly, unrealistic. Banal dialogue, crude sex scenes, delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, and a ludicrous attempt to portray a smartphone as a person. I mean that's really what we're watching, two hours of a guy going on dates and having sex with his smartphone. What's the major payoff? Well, none. He gets dumped, which then rather bizarrely, leads him to write a letter to his ex-wife apologising for past mistakes. How being dumped by a smartphone causes a person to write a grovelling letter to his ex-wife is beyond me, especially since the flashbacks show us that his marriage ended because of a problematic relationship, which suggests faults on both sides.
Don't get me wrong. There are redeeming features to this movie. The use of location shooting is executed deftly. The direction is skilled, the production design lovely and the cast do their best with the material, especially the always reliable Phoenix. But the movie really is style over substance and I think it's appearance, sound and acting talent cosmetically mask what is otherwise not only a story that has been done before in different forms, but a rather basic and underdeveloped one at that.
This was my last of the best picture nominees to watch, and I had waited until the end because of the reviews and because I felt like it would be exactly the kind of film I would enjoy. Well, sorry Mr. Jonze and your bandwagon followers, but I am disappointed.