A Beautiful, Touching Comedy-Drama

Rating: 9/10 (10 January 2014)

To this day, I still find it amazing that filmmaker Spike Jonze started his career with doing a lot of work associated with MTV and Jackass. Since that, Jonze has proved himself to be a legitimate feature filmmaker with Bein John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Where the Wild Things Are in his resume. Jonze has now shown himself to be a great filmmaker again with his latest comedy-drama, Her.
Theodore Twombley (Joaquin Phoenix) is a lonely man. He lives in a Los Angeles apartment alone and has a job where he writes letters for others and sends them out at the end of the day. Theodore is sad mainly because of his impending divorce from his wife Catherine (Rooney Mara). Subsquently, Theodore purchases a new operating system with artificial intelligence, which is designed to have a real relationship with him. After the operating system has set up, Theodore begins to talk to it like a regular person. The operating system has taken the name Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). From there on, Theodore and Samantha have a real relationship and Theodore is a lot happier, but not all the time. Theodore has a nice time with a blind date (Olivia Wilde) until she says that she wants a commitment. But, Theodore also has become closer to his neighbor Amy (Amy Adams), who he dated briefly in college.
Spike Jonze has always directed scripts written by others or ones that he co-wrote. Her marks the first time Jonze is directing a feature he wrote by himself. As a director, Jonze shows his skill with showing us where to look and what's important to his story. Jonze also does some very brilliant work as a writer in setting up the blueprints to this film and creating a world in the not too distant future where technology has made many advancements. As a writer and director, Spike Jonze tells a story that made me feel happy, sad, and emotionally invested in these characters.
Joaquin Phoenix is the heart and soul of Spike Jonze's Her. Phoenix gives his best performance since Walk the Line. With the role of Theodore Twombley, Phoenix gives us a raw and emotional performance. Phoenix makes Theodore into somebody who is lonely, funny, romantic, and heartbreaking at the same time. Phoenix carries this film on his shoulders and makes us feel for Theodore and relate to him.
The ladies surrounding Phoenix all do great jobs with their part. Scarlett Johansson makes herself stand out using only her voice as Theodore's operating system, Samantha. Johansson makes us also interested in knowing about Samantha the same way Theodore does. Amy Adams also makes herself stand out as neighbor Amy. Adams shows her raw side here too as her husband leaves her and she finds herself in a situation just like Theodore's. Rooney Mara is nice to see as ex-wife Catherine. While her character isn't fully fleshed out, Mara does fine with her role of Catherine, moreso showing her frustration and irritation with her ex-husband. Olivia Wilde was also nice to see as the blind date who was trying to start something too fast. Even though he's no lady, Chris Pratt also has a nice brief role as Theodore's co-worker and friend Paul. While this role wasn't a stretch, Pratt is nice comic relief for the film.
Along with the hard work and efforts of Jonze, Phoenix, and the cast, the crew does some beautiful work from a technical standpoint. Director of Photography Hoyte van Hoytema does very beautiful camera work and lighting here with capturing Los Angeles at day and night. K.K. Barrett, who has worked as production designer on Spike Jonze's previous features, does his best work here at bringing Los Angeles in the near future to life. I enjoyed the collaboration here as Jonze and Barrett do a nice job with the possibilities of how much technology could advance, but making the look feel that it's still a world we as and audience can still relate to. Arcade Fire provided the score and do a lovely job with the piano music. I also highly enjoyed "The Moon Song", which plays when Theodore goes on vacation to the mountains.
Her is a beautiful, wonderful comedy-drama with many laugh out loud moments. It also is an interesting look into what the future may hold.