Befuddled

Rating: 5/10 (14 February 2014)

There's less than meets the eye in writer/director Spike Jonze's attempt to intertwine modern-day romance with technology, with Jonze fabricating a befuddled story about a writer (Joaquin Phoenix, barely registering) who falls in love with the disembodied voice of his new operating system (Scarlett Johansson). It's difficult to parse what Jonze is trying to say because it feels as if he's trying to invent a topic and dress it up within a science-fiction milieu--the film is set in a futuristic Los Angeles (in reality Shanghai) where everyone appears alienated and insular. (It's also a Los Angeles where the population seems weirdly homogenized, a blend of white, Asian and lighter-skinned blacks wearing nerdy, yet funky, clothes.) Although Shanghai offers some lovely urban skylines, aided by the dusky cinematography of Hoyte Van Hoytema, too much of the action takes place in the same closed-in settings (Phoenix' office and apartment, particularly his bedroom) so that it gets kind of maddening, especially as the conversations he has with Johanssen charting the relationship's cycle get longer; though never quite boring, your frustration level begins to rise as they constantly work through their feelings. Where Jonze really confounds, though, is in his characterization of Johannson's Samantha: he's designed his film around her growth but seems shocked and disappointed when he comes to understand that underneath her exotica, what he's really created is just a woman, and a confused, needy and untrustworthy one at that.