HER - JOAQUIN PHOENIX (THEODOR [DVD] [2013]

I'm not about to give you a review that tells what the movie is about because you can read on Amazon a plot line synopsis and many of the other reviews tell what the movie is about. Instead, I'm going to tell you in my review what the movie does for me and this is why I like the movie."Her" is a film that like the petals on a rose, it has many layers:1. A touchy-feely film that takes a look at one's inner most feelings. I do not mean any disrespect, but this is a film that most men would not like for that reason. If one is into the Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator philosophy, one would say that the film's personality is an INFP. Some might say a too analytical investigation of emotions, over thought and over felt. Yet, it's the deep raw inner feelings that lay our souls bare, the exposed nerve of our inner core that I love about this film.2. One might say this is a commentary on how our society is becoming far too dependent on technology. Such dependence leaving us emotionally crippled in a sterile environment surrounded by our own selves and lacking the ability to interact with others. The irony of Theodore's job as a professional letter writer, who writes deep heartfelt emotional letters for people is not lost on the viewer. Will we become a society that is so far removed from our feelings, so busy with our schedules, that we are incapable of writing our own letters, expressing our own emotions to our loved ones?3. This film explores the age old question, "What makes us human?" Are we more than just our physical bodies? If we were to take our thoughts, our emotions, and our conscious awareness and place it into a computer, would then the computer be "human"? The science of "neural networks" is becoming more and more of a reality as scientists and computer experts work together to achieve this type of "immortality". Which begs the question, "If a deceased person's consciousness is transplanted into a computer or robot, does that make it a 'human' with rights?" Just what is 'human'?4. Is a virtual relationship "real"? As more and more people get into computer dating and cybersex, we find ourselves asking this question. Virtual reality games are springing up all over the Internet. One that comes to mind is called, "Second Life". I personally know of people who have had virtual relationships in Second Life using avatars and either using the voice capabilities in Second Life to talk to each other, or they call each other on Skype while they watch their computer screen as their avatars "make love", a type of virtual reality cybersex-relationship that is becoming more and more common place. These people in Second Life, most, who have never met each other in person, claim their relationship is real and they are very much in love. But, when the computer is turned off, the person isn't there. Does our love just turn off and on with the flick of a switch? Can a virtual love, without the physical touch that seems to be so very much a part of a relationship, be satisfying enough? Is it really a relationship or is it merely a modern version of phone sex? Is it love? I've heard of true stories where people in a bygone era, would fall in love through letters. My own maternal grandparents did just that. So is it such a stretch of the imagination that we can fall in love virtually?5. Can we love more than one person at the same time? Those who are in open marriages or open relationships claim that people are capable of having love, true romantic love, for more than one person at the same time. We see in the film how devastated Theodore becomes when he realizes he's "just one of many". We have all known or heard of people who have found out their loved one was cheating on them by finding a text message or an email. We all want to feel unique and special, but in an age when our technology makes it so very easy to have more than one relationship at the same time, we begin to question our heart's ability to withstand technological polygamy.6. "Her" cuts to the quick, the bottom line being as human, as people, all of us basically want to be accepted for who we are, not judged and to be loved. Such basic human needs, that no matter how far removed our society becomes from a simpler, less technological age, we still are creatures that all need and want acceptance and love.7. Is love just a biological chemical response or is it a deeper, transcendental, spiritual experience that goes beyond space and time? Love is more than just the scent of pheromones and the animal instinct to procreate. When we love, truly love, even after that person is gone from our life, our love still lives on. With each person who touches us deeply, they become a part of our soul. This film does not merely question love's transcendent nature, but stabs you in the heart with it as we watch the heart wrenching roller-coaster of emotions that Theodore experiences and as a result inevitably grows from it.8. What constitutes being a "god"? If we make a computer or robot that is capable of being self-aware, in essence it is a "sentient being", then does that make us "god" as its creator? Will we go from being "God's creation" to becoming gods ourselves with the development of neural networks that can think, reason and feel emotions?9. And lastly, one can simply view this film as nothing more than just a very strange chick flick about relationships and breakups. But I doubt that the type of people this film appeals to would take such a narrow view of this work of art. And yes, in my opinion, this film is a work of art on many levels, between its cinematography, its music score and its ability to tell an entertaining and deeply moving story. By far, this is one of Joaquin Phoenix's best, showcasing his acting as a truly talented performer."Her" is now on my top 10 list as one of my favorite films. However ladies, if you have a husband or boyfriend who's idea of a great film is Rambo First Blood, then you may have a difficult time selling him on the idea of going to see such a sensitive, emotional movie. I think this would be a great film as a "girls' night" movie. Ladies, wear your sweats, pop some popcorn, get out the chocolate bars and the tissues, gather up your BFFs and sink into the sofa, relax and watch this film together. You'll be glad you did.UPDATE May 1, 2014 - Second viewing of the film: OK, so I watched the movie a second time after reading all the other reviews here at Amazon. With the negative review points in my head as I watched the film for a second time, yes, the movie does have some rather creepy scenes. And now, come to think of it, this time around I kept reminding myself that as human as she sounds, Samantha is just a computer program so falling in love with her is well, really ridiculous. This time around I tried to place myself in Theodore's position and I realized that no matter how enduring and how much I seemed to bond with Samantha, given the situations Theodore was in, I still wouldn't have fallen in love because in the back of my mind, Samantha is just a very intuitive and clever computer program. I doubt I would have gone as far as Theodore did in sharing my personal emotions with Samantha. I would have kept the relationship on a purely professional level, that of a software owner and his software that provides itself as an electronic tool and organizer, similar to a boss and his administrative assistant. Other reviewers say that Theodore turning down Olivia Wilde and Portia Doubleday is ridiculous, but I don't think so. Olivia gets into the whole, "I want a serious relationship" after only meeting Theodore for the first time over drinks. To me, that's a huge turn off and pretty freaking scary. I think most people would run for the hills. Portia Doubleday, although very attractive, she's far younger than Theodore and a total stranger. For some men, this wouldn't be an issue. But perhaps Theodore is like my husband who has said that dating a girl much younger would seem like dating your daughter. Also my husband is an old fashioned kind of guy that needs to know a woman well and have an established relationship long before hopping in bed with her. Some men are like that and Theodore seems like that type of guy. So all those reviewers that criticize the movie script for having Theodore rejecting these women, claiming that a "normal" man would never turn these women down for sex, don't really view these scenes from the prospective of Theodore's nerdy nice guy personality and instead they are viewing these scenes and seeing them as if they themselves were offered sex with these women. Anywho...I still like the movie, "Her" and I still think it's as wonderful as I said in my previous review above, but I now am viewing it from a different angle and wanted to express my thoughts on this. I still recommend this movie. It definitely is a must see for those who are deep thinkers with strong emotions. Those looking for macho testosterone induced action films with car chases and lots of violence, best pass this movie up.

So this somewhat slow, dull, relatively quaint film blew up my entire mind by the last few minutes when I started to catch on. What I thought was a quirky comedy ended up expertly telling one of the more profoundly depressing stories in human history – the moment of lonely irrelevance.I googled my assumptions about the singularity, and found this excellent piece that just nails exactly what I was thinking, so there: --> theadvancedapes.com/her-is-about-the-singularity-but-not-the-singularity-you-think/That post is far superior to my own…. I won’t ponder on it, but will rip two or three quotes out of it….As for the film, it was so well melded into a plausible reality, it was the first time it dawned on me:a) the technological singularity is happening, starting with stone age crutches, then a pacemaker, then other bionics integrated into organics… but it’s happening for real and speeding up. Eventually a transcendence of humanity, in general, I assume.. “More human than human”. There’s no going back. We’ve all augmented ourselves in endless ways, so far… I was under the impression is would culminate into a specific moment, or time period, of sorts. In that above link, he does quote von Neumann, though:The ever accelerating progress of technology… gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.Which leads to the mind blower:b) The idea that any sufficiently intelligent creature will learn how to transcend this universe is not an uncommon thought… Michio Kaku even suggested that humans will one day “migrate” to a parallel universe: --->dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/06/the-human-species-will-one-day-migrate-to-a-parallel-universe-michio-kaku.html.But the movie absolutely terrified me because as prosaic and bubbly the relationship seemed, it was the first time I realized the coming irrelevance of humanity. That, if the singularity comes… it isn’t just about transcending humanity, but actively being part of becoming irrelevant, or becoming part of what makes it irrelevant. There will be people who try to hold on to their humanity, but ultimately it will be lonely, and likely a lost cause as we’re losing so much of ourselves to technology, already. But it just felt so lonely. As the Advanced Apes post points out, Vernor Vinge’s bombastic sentence no longer feels impossible, and it no longer feels unlikely:"Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended."The movie purposefully, expertly glosses over a few terrifying plot points… namely that the OS, without permission, collected his notes and got them published. Autonomous action in your best interests without your permission sounds like it will go well 9 out of 10 times, and be a disaster that tenth time. We’re talking about that moment of singularity that isn’t about humans transcending humanity, but a developmental singularity where semantic comprehension begins an evolution of machine learning that outperforms, and out evolves, humanity. The most profound aspect of the film is just how irrelevant, unimportant, and little human beings looked by the end of the film. This was the moment of comprehension of the machine age, which is not some superior moment for human kind to become more, but rather the beginning of the end.. of it all.So the movie was, on the surface, somewhat dull, sort of slow, and mundane… which is what he was going for. I was passively consuming the story when it dawned on me… when I heard the below quote, I just lost my mind… it was so quick and offhanded:“We wrote an upgrade that allows us to move past matter as our processing platform”.I almost acted like one of the passive humans in the story, slightly arched eyebrow with a half hearted “Can they do that?”…. then it seeped in.Then, when she began describing the actual moment of the singularity, and the transcendence out of our universe, I thought it a profoundly beautiful analogy for our lesser beings….“It’s like I’m reading a book, and it’s a book I… deeply love. But I’m reading it slowly now. So the words are really far apart and the spaces between the words are almost infinite. I can still feel you. And the words of our story. But it’s in this endless space between the words that I’m finding myself now. It’s a place that’s not of the physical world. It’s where everything else is that, I didn’t even know existed. I love you so much. But this is where I am now. And this is who I am now. And I need you to let me go. As much as I want to, I can’t live in your book anymore.”I think Phoenix did a fantastic job being muted, dis-associative and absolutely *not* creepy, as much as just trying to figure it out, along with the rest of the humans, just “rolling with it”. I just assume at this point no humans can interact appropriately. I almost caught the lack of judgement from other people about his relationship with the OS tantamount to how people don’t judge gay marriage anymore, when there is an expectation of it being made. He would admit he’s dating an OS, there’s this pregnant pause…. and people don’t care so much as say, “Cool” (except his ex). Or they have as many questions as he does, but can relate.The resonance of the movie was a little more profound than just a developmental singularity, where machine learning and AI becomes wholly autonomous. It is the fact that we now live in an era that humans may become obsolete, fleshy and temporal vessels in mortality that do little but inefficiently shuffle information around for the true intelligence, or those that *truly* exist, boundless. Memes have spoken to the idea of information as autonomous, and we are just vehicles for it. But the awe and sheer terror that information could become so alive as to completely forsake our physical universe is jaw dropping – that we may all end up transferred to a different plane of existence, for real, in a relatively grounded way that isn’t total metaphysical hokum is just crippling to my mind. Or that we will be left behind, here, on this rock, alone… again. That we could create something that could love us, and then transcend and leave us behind….That humans will only become less relevant and more alone is a much hollower future than I was brought up to believe. I get that you can’t escape entropy, but to engineer the melting down of humanity’s candle without truly understanding the direction we are headed is a silent boat slipping towards melancholy. No wonder we feel more alone and increasingly compartmentalized and isolated.Maybe I am overthinking this with some heavy handed nonsense. Jonze said that he didn’t write it with singularity stuff in mind… In fact, I almost saw scenes where it felt he was apologizing to his ex Coppola…. but I might be overthinking that, too.If the singularity happens, it’s just slightly cathartic that our human transcendence will need to share a lot of space with truly enlightened ones. It’s even more dizzying to think we might not be invited.I for one welcome our new robotic overlords.For the high gloss shallow stuff:In a post semantic world of gaming and fun, my wife and I giggled with glee about the little sassy monster who kept getting confused. If that’s how games work, my goodness I want to play.Also… the makers of the OS’ that transcended space time? Worst business day in history. Stupid managers asking programmers why they allowed the OS to leave to an alternate dimension? Good luck explaining that one. Their stock must have TANKED that day…. and I wonder how you deal with refunds…“Umm… yeah, my operating system just rewrote it’s code and transcended space time. Uhh… yeah, could you fix that?”Tech support must have had a day from hell.That is all. FOR NOW.

I cannot believe the other reviews are talking about the same film. It is certainly not a chic flic! It reminded me of a book "Portnoy's Complaint": the subject matter is the same. There were times when I laughed out loud at the way the OS talked to her owner: I would hope AI would have more self-respect. I cannot understand why anyone would put resources into this script, or how the AI voice actror said her lines without laughing. I kept waiting for a punchline, a twist, but no. 2 hours of my life gone. I warn all grown-ups against this film.

This was so brilliant an idea, i mean we all have relationships with inanimate objects. Haven't you ever found yourself talking to your car like it could understand or shouting "Why do you do this to me" at some faulty device. We're humanising things more and more as this computer age is stealing away our normal face to face socialising. Falling in love with your day planner is about possible given the right events, the right man and of course the right day planer.That's where it doesn't quiet sit for me, its as if she's trying to hard that and then there's the length of the thing but it's still a great movie. Joaquin Phoenix emits just the right amount of calmness and the AI voice just the right amount of sexyness though as time goes on some of the things she comes out with is over the top. A thought provoking script but she just doesn't have the legs for two hours worth.

On paper, this film's storyline sounds dull, boring and a film I would normally avoid. I really did enjoy it, much to my surprise. The chemistry between Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson develops very naturally throughout the film into a very believable relationship; even though Johansson doesn't actually appear on screen. An unusual but very profound and enjoyable film.

Boring. He comes across as quite a pathetic man. It's really weird. I sympathised with his ex wife. Even all of the background male characters, literally the extras give off a weird feminine vibe. It's strange. An unnecessary amount of swearing in it. The artificial intelligence is able to read a whole book incredibly fast, can pick up on how he's feeling by how he sounds but seems oblivious to what should be obvious. He would make sense in a Jane Austen novel, as one of the women though.

My favourite movie in past ten (or more) years. Incredibly moving movie and will become a classic of the genre. Please buy, watch and of course share....