Her Review

Director: Spike Jonze
Written by: Spike jonze
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, Chris Pratt 
Running time: 126 Minutes.
Release Date: 14th February



Theodore Twombly (Phoenix) finds himself alone in a modern age, after a messy divorce from his wife (Rooney Mara). He is caught between both escaping and trying to find intimacy. He soon installs a new operating system, which is more than a computer and is custom made just for his needs. The OS (Johansson) both teaches and learns from Theodore, and soon enough get involved romantically.

The performances are brilliant and even as just a voice surrounded by animated faced and body language Scarlett Johansson shines as the operating system who learns about the human habits too quickly and becomes a body-less human with emotions trapped in a phone. Joaquin Phoenix plays a surprisingly vulnerable character, whose divorce has left him unhappy, apathetic and incapable of connecting with women. Tongue Loose favourite Chris Pratt makes a delightful appearance and plays Paul, Theodores biggest fan adding much needed warmth to the surprisingly funny flick.

There's no background story as to why the blissful marriage ended or what led to the bitter divorce, yet another flaw in the story telling while more focus is put on the sexual desires and needs than on reason for the emotional insensitivity

Her is an incredibly gorgeous film, it's stunning to look at and it's fascinating to see how close we are to that future. It manages to explore the ideas of love and intimacy while also sending out big warning signs of the faux intimacy our operating systems give us. While all the pieces are perfect separate, Her comes together and ends up not being an enjoyable film. It's almost painful to watch and and is not a nice experience over all.

It is worth mentioning that when walking out of the screening and discussing the film with fellow critics it was clear that the men loved it while this female disagreed. Why? Maybe because it's a film written by a man for men. It's very much from the point of view of men, it adds a brilliant nuance needed in films exploring love in the modern day but it's too hard to relate too and with its 30 excessive minutes becomes frustrating to watch.

Basically:

We liked the exploration of love in a modern and increasingly technology led world.
We didn't like the running time. Cut off 30 minutes and let's see if it becomes more bearable to watch.