Gorgeous writing!

Rating: 10/10 (17 June 2014)

I was stunned at the incredible quality of the writing in Her. For starters, it's rare to find good film (or comics or narrative, in general) writing for specialist jargon; and the technical lingo and formulations in Her didn't make me cringe, not even once. It's an interesting, fine line: I didn't expect Jonze to have taken out a year to make a study of the literature in AI and Computer Systems. He just had to have a basic idea of a few precepts, from which he was free to "wing it", as long as he modulated it a bit and drew back from gratuitous tech-speak for its own sake. This, he did, IMHO.
Next, there's simply that the scenario of Her is one with breathing room; there's room for endless, interesting development, including the creation of characters and character interactions that reflect our own lives and concerns. Then, we can feel their triumphs, pangs, passions (however ephemeral). Amazingly, Her does all this.
There was such a sense of wholeness and integrity to the production, that "controversial" elements (involving sex/nudity/"personal stuff") came across as essential points of character and relationship development. Her makes it plain, right out of the gate, that certain cases are going to be made. And armed with this psychological preparation, subsequent action may not go down easy--sometimes, it's not supposed to!--but thankfully doesn't grate our sensibilities, on account of a lack of presentation artistry.
I loved the way hi-to-mid-to-lo tech seemed to be artfully modulated; as though Jonze was orchestrating these things. It made the higher-tech depicted feel imaginable. As challenging as it was to understand Samantha, the lo-tech of the seaside picnic scene presented an unexpected, shocking twist; a challenge to *continue to ultimately see* Samantha as an AI system. And the mid-tech (e.g., office sets) remind us that, while we may not have love affairs with our computer systems, we often blandly/blindly take job/lifestyle/quotidian tech for granted. And one healthy side effect of a flick like Her is to craft a depiction of mid-tech that draws our attention to it and makes us reflect on it.
Her is, in effect, very much an attempt to couch a doctoral thesis on tech-acceptance/pop-culture as a very watchable movie.
Add to this a plethora of other notable achievements. For one thing, it's a tour-de-force take on AI--in a sci-fi film field drenched with CGI-encrusted must-kill-all-humans dystopian action fantasy. The acting is human and close-to-the-bone. It strictly hews to taking on matters of love, not power(!), which is a stunner for a flick that has AI as its central theme. To flesh in my opening comment at the top of this post, all aspects of the writing shine; it has zingers, it has arc. It has heart.
The film does such a good job of achieving its apparent goal that it vaults the wall and takes us into another realm; where, finally, "the rest of us" can partake in otherwise rarefied ruminations on the morality and ethics of machine consciousness.
Highly recommended.