Spike Jonze, former music video wunderkind and hipster auteur extraordinaire, is one of the truly unique voices in American film today. His films, of which Her is the fourth, following Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Where the Wild Things Are, are, in a word, different. Even the adaptation of the Maurice Sendak children's book is heartfelt, visually distinctive and features a wholly unique voice. So enters his newest flick, which he both wrote and directed, Her.
Her is set in an imagined near future Los Angeles where technology and gadgets have continued to advance an isolate us to the point where the newest OS for mobile devices is a sentient artificial intelligence. Our protagonist is a lonely, introspective letter writer (ugh, I know) going through a divorce who decides to buy the new OS... and finds himself drawn into a surprising and confusing relationship with Samantha, his new OS.
The Good: this film is both fanciful and grounded in a very recognizable reality, and that's not easy to do. Jonze's visuals are soothing and bright, evocative of the kind of future we should all hope for. At the same time, the film draws on interesting philosophical questions on the relationship between man and the technology we've created, a line that becomes increasingly blurred with every passing year. The scenario envisioned in Her is virtually a foregone conclusion at this point, and the speculation on the issue in this film is a unique and emotional one. All of this is grounded in the quality of the central performance. Joaquin Phoenix, as strange as he is, and as goofy as he looks in this role, is one of our very finest actors, and he imbibes Theo with a tender sadness, sensitivity and humanity. The film's central relationship, between man and machine, would have fallen flat on its face in the hands of a lesser actor. Scarlett Johannson's voice work is tremendous as well.
The Bad: Ultimately, I'm not sure that this film rings that true for me on closer examination. I feel like truly sentient AI as depicted in this film would likely completely revolutionize human existence on a scale that this film ignores. That's most likely my own nerdiness getting in the way of the story at hand, but it seems likely that mega corporations and governments would likely use AI to their own ends before releasing it as a consumer product, and this initial use would render our society unrecognizable. With that being said, I'm fine with the film as a fable of sorts, but it seems odd that the city of LA is THAT nice in the future. Theo lives in a million dollar loft on... a letter writer's salary? That seems like a cushy gig. Ultimately, these are relatively minor quibbles, but they were very distracting for me.
Ultimately, this is a smart, tender, emotional flick with a lot to say about human relationships with ourselves, with one another and with our technology, and it features a tremendously acted and tender love story at its heart. It's a little hipsterific, but I don't really mind. I feel like this is a vision of the future and the larger human condition worth sharing, and one of the more unique and worthwhile films of the last few years.
8.5/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment