Serling did it in 30 minutes and called it "An Episode of The Twilight Zone"

Rating: 3/10 (26 March 2014)

What's positive about this film: The laconic direction is centered on a dreamer roaming through a melancholic dream-haze view of a quasi-futuristic Los Angeles. Isolated high-rises, interspersed with anonymous crowds of people rushing nowhere, are matched with flash-back and dream sequences set to a mellow mixture of almost new age sounding Muzak. All of this is artful and enticing and lures you into a world that seems much more grounded and real than the vast majority of CGI'd futures we normally are fed in Hollywood Sci-if. Kudos to Jones, his cinematography, and musical score.
Joaguin Phoenix and Amy Adams are fine as melancholic loners in a world of bland vacuity. Phoenix carries the film on his shoulders and few can play the not-quite-right oddball as well as him. Adams is pretty and vulnerable in an understated performance. Scarlett Johannson has the sexy voice to carry the part of the disembodied OS that catches Phoenix's eye?....well...ear anyways.
What's negative about this film: Rod Serling would have edited it all down to the 30 minutes of core plot and called it an episode of the Twilight Zone. This isn't much different than Burgess Meredith being a bookworm who loses his glasses in a world of books. Too much of the movie is fluff and filler hammering and overemphasizing the plot points again and again, and ultimately this drags the movie down to a snail's pace.
This did not deserve a best pic nod in my opinion.