Her

We've seen all kinds of films with a love story theme to it, love of people, cars, country,etc, these films have been, in many cases, a view of a writer's love and/or fear of how attached they are to a particular subject. So since love stories have been covered heavily by Hollywood, "Her" takes this genre and gives it a completely different spin.

Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) is a lonely man in the final stages of his divorce. When he's not working as a letter writer, his down time is spent playing video games and occasionally hanging out with friends. In an attempt to beat his loneliness and out of total curiosity, he decides to purchase the new OS1, which is advertised as the world's first artificially intelligent operating system, "It's not just an operating system, it's a consciousness", the ad states. Theodore quickly finds himself drawn in with Samantha (voice of Scarlett Johansson), the voice behind his OS1. As they start spending time together they grow closer and closer and eventually find themselves in love. Having fallen in love with his OS, Theodore finds himself dealing with feelings of both great joy and doubt. As an OS, Samantha has powerful intelligence that she uses to help Theodore in ways others hadn't, but how does she help him deal with his inner conflict of being in love with an OS?

Others to round out the cast are Amy Adams as Amy, friend of Theodore's. Rooney Mara as Catherine, soon to be ex-wife of Theodore's, Chris Pratt as Paul, Theodore's boss, Olivia Wilde as Blind Date, Matt Letscher as Charles, husband of Amy's, Laura Kai Chen as Tatiana, Paul's girlfriend, and Portia Doubleday as Surrogate Date Isabella.

This was incredibly well directed by Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich '99, "Adaptation" '02, "Where the Wild Things Are" '09). The way Theodore transcends into getting to know Samantha, his OS, is amazingly natural as if he was getting to know a human. Sure there were times he was intrigued with the fact that this computer was so 'personal', but that feeling was subsequently replaced by a feeling of comfort he experienced as he continued to get to know Samantha. This was shear genius on the part of Jonze. Jonze also wrote this, and he has written an array of screenplays including a plethora of shorts and films ranging from "Where the Wild Things Are" '09 to "Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa" ''13. It is truly difficult to believe that one person could write such diverse work and be OK with it. This was definitely an odd storyline on many levels, but if there is a good message here, it would be, to not rely on technology as much as our society does, i.e. IPods, Nooks, Laptops, Tablets, Smart Phones, MP3 players, becoming less of a people who are isolated. Instead, become a people where interaction with other people is far more important--to touch someone not something.

I can see why this received the attention it did at the Golden Globes, because it was well written, but it took an area that people become obsessed with--computers, and flipped that subject matter upside down to truly make that point that Theodore needed to see. Maybe we also need to see the same point as a society.

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                        Rated: R                          126mins.