Review of Her (2013) by Python2000 — 08 Feb 2014

People and critics call movies beautiful way too much, and I always think it’s probably good but I doubt it’s beautiful. Then I watch the movie and I’m almost always right. Her is a beautiful movie.

The way it is filmed and designed catches your eye but doesn’t ram how stylised it is down your throat (like for example 300 and Sucker Punch). Spike Jonze writes and directs Her, a science fiction romance (two very unusual genres which usually don’t mix) about a card writer who falls in love with his operating system Samantha.

Joaquin Pheonix plays Theodore who has just come out of a horrible break up with his long time wife who he has known almost all his life, he is perfect and remains likable for the whole runtime without being the clichéd “innocent divorced man” who appears in way to many romantic movies nowadays.

Although you only hear her voice Scarlett Johannson also embodies her character perfectly, this time in the role of Theodore’s operating system, however she was not as likable as Theodore and came out as a bit of a b*tch (I didn’t think it was possible for computers to be b*tches) this is pretty much the only major problem I have with the movie and it might have even been intentional by the writers.

Amy Adams and Chris Pratt are the supporting cast and are equally brilliant. Apart from four characters Her has pretty much no cast, this another strange thing which I liked about it. Instead of having Theodore confront his parents and start thinking about marriage like in straightforward predictable romance movies, Her only revolves around the relationship between Samantha and Theodore which is why I think it is so gripping without having any action in it.

Another little thing which just interested me was how funny it was. I laughed more in Her than I did in straightforward comedies like Red 2 and The Family, it’s not exactly hilarious but that’s because it’s not trying to be.

It is because of this that Her reminds me of The Spectacular Now, but set in the future. I loved The Spectacular Now by the way and I loved Her even more. It is undeniably a must see and genuinely one of my favourite movies ever.

I think romance movies are the worst pieces of cinema, Her is an exception.