Certainly a worthwhile piece of reflective sci fi, though hard to say quite why!

Rating: 9/10 (24 June 2017)

Spike Jonze's 2013 movie "Her" hit the headlines when it successfully chimed with the inner desires of about a quarter of the planet by allowing its hero character Theodore Twombly (played with aplomb by Joaquin Phoenix) to reach some kind of highly-intimate climactic state in bed, with the eponymous "Her", i.e. Samantha, as played - or rather voiced - by Scarlett Johansson. And this short fragment is certainly the film's highlight, an erotic enough experience, but also a moment of joy and sweetness, in that it represents the culmination of a first phase in which the personable, intelligent, super-competent but highly-inexperienced Samantha pursues her self-awareness, and gets an ever-clearer version of her needs, in the close company of Phoenix's world-weary (and remarkably Leonard Hofstadter-like) Twombly.
The elephant in this room, and doubtless no secret even among those who have not yet seen the film, is that Samantha is an AI construct, a so-called OS1 operating system whose primary original task - of sorting out Twombly's life on the organisational side - brings out the need for romantic love buried inside him, if obscured by lingering warm-cum-bitter feelings for his beautiful,near-perfect childhood sweetheart and later bride Catherine (played by Rooney Mara). Theodore's real-life relationship with Catherine had everything going for it (so much so indeed that neither spouse is particularly keen to move on to the concrete step of divorce), yet it just didn't work out, and the two end up annoying each other more and more, in spite of the love and compatibility. This is, let's face it, an all-too-familiar real-life circumstance, and one that all of us would benefit from analysing and understanding better.
Samantha, in turn, ticks Theodore's boxes because she is calm, attentive, caring, helpful, non-pushy, curious, witty, warm and kind. She's there when needed, but not all the time. Perhaps, then, it's all just a bit too convenient? But it's also an increasingly popular option, as the film makes clear as people in general get their OS1s, while the marriage of close friends of Theodore's also succumb to the attendant temptations.
This is then a world slightly into the future, but doing nothing more than exaggerating tendencies we already see. Automation and robotisation seem to have taken away quite a few old-fashioned jobs, so Theodore's circles are in design and media, and - crucially enough for the film - he himself is in the hit profession of writing skillful letters in line with client instructions that help with the (fake) perfecting of interpersonal relationships of various different kinds. Theodore is of course adept at his job, thinking through the most perfect ways of pleasing letter-recipients. At the same time, he is everyman and no man, neither exactly young nor old, not ugly or very handsome, doing little between work and home, living mostly in a nostalgic past but also succumbing to shallow temptations of instant erotic online gratification with others that his world has brought to (sometimes perverted) perfection, but which our world is already experiencing in more primitive form.
This all gives the watcher a great deal to think about, and it is highly likely that the mind-content in the hours and days that follow the film will actually be RICHER than that on offer in the film itself.
Nevertheless, the above description is by no means the end of what's on offer here as - needless to say - our "Lucy"-like Scarlett goes on growing. At this point, I will hold off with the spoilers (notwithstanding the warning above), but suffice it to say that the ever-glass-half-empty Theodore can't really stay fully happy in the face of Samantha's aforesaid mix of ever-growing intelligence and awareness and non-corporeality.
Perhaps his heart was always going to be broken (again)? Perhaps everybody's would be in the same circumstances? Perhaps he could and should have made his marriage work? Perhaps he should opt for another real-life woman in the shape of the neighbour and friend, now estranged from her husband - or even a blind date played by Olivia Wilde that he is content to reject! These are just a few of the many questions the film asks, before bringing us to a one-way-street ending that is left a bit ambiguous, but actually seems clear-cut enough...
Apart from at the one aforesaid moment when other, more base emotions take hold, "Her" is basically a poignant and sad film, of mixed - perhaps even confused - message. What I took out of it most was something worth taking, I believe, that most of us have relationships that DID NOT appear by chance and that probably have sifted through a large number of suitability/compatibility filters before we even meet, let alone get together. Hence, to be brutally honest, the chances of us finding something (long-term) better if we ditch (or let die a slow death) what we've got are small indeed. Fantasy is just great, beguilingly perfect, but in the end it is just that, and probably it leaves us more alone than ever, if we embrace it.