Her - film review: Joaquin Phoenix impresses in Spike Jonze's brilliantly reimagined rom-com

Joaquin Phoenix is funny and touching as a man who falls for his computer’s sexy voice in Spike Jonze’s original take on love and loneliness, a rom-com for the digital age
Nerdy and needy: Joaquin Phoenix’s Theodore is estranged from real life
David Sexton28 July 2014

"The mistake one makes is to speak to people," observes the narrator of Samuel Beckett’s great story of romantic entanglement, First Love. Too right. Difficulties always ensue.

Her, the first film Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) has both written and directed, opens with its hero, Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), apparently speaking a passionate love letter. “I’ve been thinking how I can possibly let you know how much you mean to me.” He seems sincere. Then he continues: “I can’t believe it’s been 50 years since you married me, the girl I was ... print.”

Theo earns his living at beautiful-letters.com by dictating intimate missives for other people. He’s in a world of estrangement and substitution and he’s sad and lonely.

We follow him back to his apartment where, sleepless in bed, he browses the opportunities for phone sex with strangers. It seems to be going fine with sexykitten (“Are you wearing any underwear?”) when suddenly she demands: “Choke me with that dead cat! The dead cat next to the bed.” Theo tries to oblige. “Its tail is around your neck,” he improvises. She orgasms loudly and immediately rings off. Other people have agendas that don’t always mesh too well with our own, don’t they? They’re people too, unfortunately.

The next day, Theo spots an ad for OS1, a new artificially intelligent computer operating system, “an intuitive entity that listens to you, understands you and knows you”. The program launches by asking if it should be a male or female voice, then abruptly enquires about Theo’s relationship with his mother (the film is full of such deftness). That’s enough for starters.

“Hello, I’m here. Hi! How are you doing? It’s really nice to meet you,” says the sexiest voice ever (Scarlett Johansson), so intimate, giggly and fun. She’s just given herself the name Samantha, the one she liked best after instantaneously scanning 180,000 alternatives. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with my computer,” Theo protests. “You’re not,” she says. “You’re having it with me.”

Samantha’s so great. She starts organising Theo’s life, coaxing him out of his depression, always there in his ear, anywhere, anytime, so responsive and affectionate, learning all the time, developing more and more affinity with him. Starting from scratch, she’s not bitter with baggage.

After a blind date with a scarily demanding real woman (manic Olivia Wilde), there’s only one way it’s going to go. Theo tells Samatha she feels real to him and he wishes he could touch her. “How would you touch me?” she asks — and turns out to be as great at disembodied sex as everything else. They start having such a tip-top time together, indoors and out — it’s mutual! They’re lovers.

Most people are fine with it. When Theo’s friend at work suggests double-dating and Theo explains that, actually, Samantha’s an operating system, he just says “Cool!” The one real woman Theo gets on well with, his neighbour (sweet Amy Adams), has an OS for a best friend herself.

Read More

Theo’s wife (wispy Rooney Mara) isn’t so happy, though, when they meet to finalise their divorce. “You can’t handle real emotions,” she says. Then to a passing waitress: “He put me on Prozac and now he’s madly in love with his laptop.”

Theo’s so happy, though — until Samantha too, being an evolving intelligence, begins to change and grow away from him, just as women have done in the past. Isn’t it always the way? You can’t ever stay where you are: you have to move on together in a relationship if it’s to have any chance of survival.

Her is a brilliantly reimagined rom-com, only obliquely interested in its sci-fi setting, which is casually disclosed as the film goes on, never foregrounded. In this future Los Angeles the technology is hidden or even retro — computer screens have wooden frames and the mobile device Theo uses to communicate with Samantha is no bigger than a hearing aid. The city is advanced (based partly on the Pudong district near Shanghai) but there are few cars — and the main indicator of another era is beautifully minimal: the high-waistedness of Theo’s tweedy trousers.

So, contrary to expectation, the movie isn’t really effects or technology-driven at all. It works so well, becoming truly touching as well as outrageously funny, mainly because of great performances from Joaquin Phoenix as the nerdy, lacklustre guy who at the start of the film believes he’ll never have a really new experience again, and Scarlett Johansson, such a seductive, breathing, emotive presence through voice alone (although our knowledge of who she is gives us some ideas about what she would look like, if she had a body).

Interestingly, the entire role of Samantha was originally recorded by Samantha Morton, judged not to work, and re-recorded by Johansson — just one of the little advantages of being wholly disembodied.

If it’s not really about AI or the future at all, Her does nevertheless have some very suggestive scenes where you gradually realise that all the people on walkways and in malls are relating to their devices, not to each other. It looks just like our streets now. Perhaps for now we’re using them to talk to each other, as well as communicate with systems? But we’re still dislocated by them from where we actually are.

Real people can be so much less available, so much less responsive, so much more difficult. But what’s the alternative? “I could have done with other loves, perhaps,” concludes the narrator of First Love after the affair is over. “But there it is — either you love or you don’t.”

Latest film reviews

1/99

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in