It’s no joke that Scarlett Johansson is generating Oscar buzz as Samantha in Her despite the sum of her role consisting of a remarkable voice but not one visual appearance. Instead, she provides the distinctive, albeit disembodied voice of a computer operating system. Convincingly conveying the notion that she possesses an autonomous consciousness, Johansson gives an adorable, insightful performance.
Her is written and directed by the wildly inventive Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation). Fresh off an acting role in The Wolf of Wall Street, Jonze once again appears in this film. Savvy cinephiles may recognize that Jones provides the voice of a cyber-character.
Her also stars Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore Twombly. Twombley’s a nerdy yet sensitive “letter writer” for BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com. Theodore is vulnerable yet instinctive, and above all, tender. He’s good at writing romantic letters because he understands people’s sweet spots. Once the sexy and savvy yet innocent Samantha gets a hold of him, he’s toast.
Jonze’s screenplay approaches the notion of sexual attraction from a new angle. Here he removes the visual component and relies exclusively on the aural to unleash the powers of Theodore’s imagination. For Theodore, Samantha is a perfect match. She can tune into his emotional needs in a manner that proves both perceptive and humorous. She also smoothly leads the interactions while giving Theodore the illusion that he is actually leading. The “games” Samantha plays work on such an ideal level, they are highly prone to lose their footing once a physical surrogate (Portia Doubleday) is introduced, or the perfect machine begins to develop the all-too-human qualities of growth and self-doubt. “I don’t like who I am right now,” says Samantha at a key juncture. “I need time to think.” Conflicting needs will drive a wedge through the “perfect” machine/human relationship just as assuredly as they would unravel a human/human encounter.
What begins with the tropes of a human-potential movement sensitivity session turns itself on its head. Jonze makes the unusual relationship seem perfectly integrated into Theodore’s peer group while convincingly juxtaposing Theodore’s deep-seated doubts. One moment he and Samantha are on a hilarious double date with his co-worker and his girlfriend, who take Samantha in stride while communicating with her via cellphone. The next moment Theodore’s morose with the realization that Samantha is no Catherine (his ex, a very good Rooney Mara). In fact, she’s at the very least a different species, and, it’s increasingly clear, one who’s fundamentally destined for remoteness. Theodore talks about the aftermath of the “honeymoon phase” when Samantha complains they aren’t having as frequent sex. The experiment between he and Samantha itself undergoes a very similar transformation. It’s funny, it’s tender and exhilarating; then it’s awkward and off-center. Heightened sensitivity morphs into the desensitized commonplace, mirroring a familiar trajectory of a traditional relationship. Its tragedy feels more intense because it started off so ground-breakingly promising.
Jonze offers often uncanny insight into the emotional alphabet of romantic relationships. The insecurities and reassurances, the flirting and fulfillments of a budding relationship all seem stone-cold real. Does Jonze seems less assured when he’s demonstrating the societal effects of intimate internal interacting with a hyper-technology? Lured by a perfect first half where Jonze’s premise never seems on shaky grounds, it may seem so. Yet what seems like an arbitrary aside to go global actually works to achieve an alarmist view of a world gone out of kilter while no one notices. In street scenes preoccupied pedestrians talk with their devices throughout the film. In fact they seem to do nothing but talk with their devices.
Far removed from his manufactured misanthropic persona in the pseudo-documentary I’m Still Here, Phoenix rocks brilliantly here. His interactions with pal Amy (Amy Adams, excellent as always) who herself is experiencing a budding cyber-relationship, are fraught with gentle affections of a more straightforward sort than those with Samantha. Yet nothing is obvious. His journey from despair to euphoria and onto something else entirely would have felt dangerously superficial in the hands of most other actors.
Theodore forces us to relate to his notion that “sometimes I think I’ve felt everything I’m going to feel…and the future will only offer lesser versions of what I’ve already felt.” For Theodore to discover that he was anything but unique in experiencing the delights of Samantha is a sad revelation indeed. Her warp-speed ability in processing the everyday (she reads an entire book in two-hundredths of a second) should have been a tip-off she’d also be out on some different plane regarding the important stuff. If you think love is blind, watch out for the machine.