Kiss "Her"

Rating: 7/10 (16 February 2014)

The flick "Her" starts out with a setting that somewhat reminds us of a future, but still set in the modern day. Computer technology is much more advanced, but there aren't droids walking around with human skin, no flying cars and "Jetson skywalks". But the computer OS (operating systems) are more advanced. In the first scene alone, Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) is telling his hand-held device (phone? ipod? mini tablet? All of them?) to play "melancholy music", and read out emails, and even look at nude pictures, all with his voice. Now, maybe I don't have the newest iphone, but I'm not sure Siri can do all this yet. Almost, but not yet. And that's the interesting thing about this film so fat. It's the future of tomorrow, and tomorrow is today.
Theodore is a lonely man who's employment is to write "handwritten" (on the computer with his voice) love letters. He's still in the middle of a divorce (with the underused Rooney Mara) and in his depression grew a really creepy mustache. He mumbles to his co-workers, even when they compliment him on his writing, and plays a sort of virtual reality video game where he uses his hands to "walk" his character. Finding out about a new OS update, he downloads it and a voice greets him. And of course, it's Her.
This is no Hal or C-3PO. This is literally Scarlet Johansson's voice. There's no robotic tone, or even a creepy vibe. Samantha sounds like a real person talking to Theodore, even including breathing. And for an AI (Artificial Intelligence), it's pretty damn aware of itself. It's like R2D2 with a personality. Quickly, Theodore and Samantha develop a friendly trust, and she learns who he is as a person, very quickly and uses this to suggest better music and to even edit his writing in a friendly way. She truly is his new best friend. And with Scarlet's sultry voice, it's no problem to start falling in love with her a little bit.
And that's what happens. After talking to each other on a frequent basis, they end up falling in love. She's constantly "evolving" and is developing emotions, like curiosity and humor and the viewer quickly forgets that this is a computer. During all this, Amy Adams is introduced as Theodore's one time fling, and long time friend, who's marriage is at an end and she too is engrossed in a deep friendship with her OS.
After a while, both Samantha and Theodore bicker at each other. Samantha is jealous that Theodore has met with his (almost) ex-wife, since she has a body and they're not officially divorced. Theodore becomes distraught when he learns that Samantha is always talking to about 8000 people at the same time, and she's fallen in love with 641 of them, though she insists that she doesn't love him any less.
I won't spoil the ending, because I was frankly very annoyed at it. But the message I got was that the metaphor for Her was that we spend WAY too much time on our devices. We should set them down, and talk to people, develop real friendships and relationships and learn to thrive as human beings. Ironically, I write this on a pc, with my i-pod playing music in the background, periodically texting people.
Overall, I felt the film was enthralling, lovely, and the cast was excellent. Ms. Johansson herself stole the show with just her voice. My only complaints are the ending, and the fact we never saw more of the awesome video game that was featured, but I digress.