Lei

Okay let's get something straight: There is nothing I love more than badass, exhilarating movies! The Joker performing his little pencil magic trick, Indiana Jones dodging traps and swinging his lion-taming whip at enemies, the bride in kill bill punching her way out of a closed coffin with her bare hands, John McClane single-handedly annihilating an airplane in mid-air while exclaiming the best one-liner known to mankind and I could go on and on...

HOWEVER, nothing compares to the emotional rollercoaster the movie "Her" took me. It's nothing short of a masterpiece, a unique way of describing a love story and it makes you think of what it actually means to be human. I just didn't want it to end and even after multiple rewatches, it still manages to take me off guard and make me tear up because of how beautiful and sad at the same time it all is. I can't remember any movie being able to achieve that. So yeah, definitely check this one out.

And for those who are wondering: this is my third favourite movie of all time.

Another movie that i say "i should've watched before". Intense romantic drama. Fascinating portrait of loneliness in a post-digital world. Amazingly original screenplay, concept, musics, especially colors and performance from Joaquin Phoenix. This made me stay with myself after the credits have finished, i found myself reflecting on my own life and relationships.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity." Albert Einstein

No better romance is on the screen in 2013 than Spike Jonze's insightful Her. It's about a writer in the future, Theodore, who falls in love with his new operating system (gravelly, sexy voice of Scarlett Johansson), just as he is reluctantly divorcing Catherine (Rooney Mara). The always complicated paths of love make sense as we witness the Platonic relationship develop, sans flesh and sans insanity that usually comes with that flesh.

Her is a simple film that offers a view of love I never thought could come from a machine and its software. Although critics will cite the theme as a screed against the distancing of technology and our growing isolation from each other, and they will be right, I offer the sub theme that only when we strip ourselves of sensual bonds can we see the purity of emotional love, an essence of which Plato would have approved. Yes, although technology is mediating our lives at a rapid pace, we fall back to a personal drive to love and be loved that is physical in its best form but understood best if we can distance ourselves from that physicality.

This delightfully intimate and non-violent film from acclaimed absurdist director Spike Jonze is more emotionally involving than even Enough Said (one of 2013's best romances) because the interaction between the software and the man is all verbal, no glimpse of the gorgeous Johansson allowed. Although this intuitive OS does allow mind sex, even that activity is abstract, allowing us to realize how connecting with a live human is in the mind still and one of life's great gifts, orgasm or not.

Her allows us to witness the evolution of love separate from the encumbrances of physicality. Released from the bonds of appearance, voice is the seducer, not in rude sexual nuance but rather in the care that comes from love of the mind, not the body.

K.K. Barrett's production design, Austin Gorg's art direction, and Gene Serdena's set decoration are memorable: full of comfortable light, much glass overlooking the city, and modern but warm furniture both in LA and Singapore. These artists understand that the fusion of technology and art is not a battle but a collaboration that further helps us understand the intricate workings of human emotion.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C. Clarke

While I enjoy this movie for what it is, I simply have to disagree with all of those who portray this movie as some beautiful love story. This movie is about love, but it is not a love story. Without giving away any spoilers, if you want to understand the movie pay attention to the very last act of the main character when the movie ends. The movie is about relationships and how difficult human relationships especially can be. However in the end because we are human those are the only relationships we can truly have - are with each other - and the hurt and vulnerability and sometimes pain that come with them is simply something we have to accept. And no matter how much you love or care for a person sometimes it just doesn't work out. However that does not mean that you did not love or care for that person and to a certain extent will always. This is what the main character realizes and comes to understand at the end of the movie.

Fairly rare one of a kind film.

A high concept film that actually stays true to its core idea yet without losing viewer interest.

Some irony here. While the film never becomes completely predictable, even to a jaded reviewer like this one, its process of de-constructing human relationship (brilliant, and better than all Woody Allen's films combined) generates the sequential "connections" with the viewer (ie, experiences that every viewer can relate to) which in turn keep the empathy going long after the initial sci fi "wow" is gone.

Watching this (as an aside) you have to wonder if Scarlett Johansson's career can get any more interesting? In the Marvel films she plays an uber-woman, In LUCY she a woman who evolves beyond evolution itself. And here yet again she plays an OS that transcends reality.

Makes for a nice resume.

Notice how Amy Adams plays every scene with no makeup? Talk about a director making every effort to keep an actor's natural beauty from hijacking the film...?