Review of Her (2013) by Zanele J — 01 Oct 2014

Review by Zanele Jiane.

One of the reasons human beings were created was to relate to one another, evidence abounds on this. Hearts break, divorces are filed; wars are waged as soon as the quality of the relation turns sour as we are vigilant on his matter. Man's basic need for food, shelter and security cannot be met without basic human relations. People relate to each other, pets, God, angels, cars, homes, nature, some of these relationships are one sided and others reciprocal, in this digital another aberration has crept into the list of items a person can relate to and that is smartphones, humans now can spend hours on end staring at a phone as the phones are now a portal that connects man to the rest of his world.

"Her" is about such evolution where artificial intelligence evolves to the point of developing a personality; a very likely technology, Theodore Twombly (Phoenix) is a writer bored writer undergoing divorce. I'm not sure if Twombly is a merge of two words, the number two and the word assembly (Coming together), probably that's what the screenwriter did. Theodore and Samantha the OS (A computer Operating system like Windows 95, Android KIT KAT etc.) falls in love and have "virtual sex" and matters accelerates and jealousy ensues when Samantha spends time with another OS, later the two fall apart.

By the mere fact that a human and an operating system forming a relationship immediately problems abound, the more different two parties are more likely for conflict to occur, variety is the enemy of unity. Equations such as 1 + 1 =2 can be solved by almost everyone, multiplying odd numbers gets trickier and can be solved by many people requiring slightly longer time to resolve, introducing algebra and trigonometry requires even more time and only a few people can solve those kinds of problems, this is simply because the variety has grown. Soon after Theodore is dumped by his OS he sobers up and realizes the error of his ways with his childhood sweetheart and becomes warmer again.

This movie is quite original and bright, even the costumes were bright colors, I've never seen so much orange in a movie, looks like it was shot in summer, the score is lively and perfectly timed to the story especially when Theodore was spooked by Samantha's disappearance.

Scarlett Johannsson is a versatile actress she does voice as excellent as she does an action figure, he baritone voice was the liveliest part of the movie, and it is very sexy. Joaquin Phoenix is really burdened the entire movie allowing scenes where he is most grateful for his relation to Samantha to shine that emotion through. Olivia Wilde is just damn beautiful. He character was essential to reveal Theodore's character which is difficult to do as events in the movie, which drives the character arc, are too subtle. Amy Adams looked different in blond, she looks very innocent and easy to root for, and she makes the end of the film a happy one.