Her (Spike Jonze) [285.5 points / 25 votes]
(Original, longform version published here; excerpted, modified and published here with the consent of the author.)
"Her (2013) is the best movie of 2013. The joy it has provoked in the people who like it and the irksome hate that it manages to stir in those who don’t mark it as a film outside of indifference - this is meant to bring forth strong feelings either way. As the first movie written solely by Spike Jonze, it shows how his visual flair, familiar from his previous short films, music videos and feature-length films, also translates to the written word as a kind of delicate ambition, as in the delicacy of an object that appears plain but caries with it a beautiful and ineffable inner light. Though the film is named after the character voiced by Scarlett Johannson, an advanced OS that has been built around the twin concepts of companionship and human personality using an advanced algorithm (as announced in the futuristic programmed holographic announcements that Theodore, the protagonist, sees in the street), it is nevertheless truly about Theodore (played by Joaquin Phoenix) and his relationship with a being that really isn’t alive nor should have feelings. In other words, this is the future, but it's a future that isn't far removed from where we are today. Just how really close are we to a genuine artificial intelligence created to such detail and perfection that it seems indistinguishable from a human conciousness? If it tries to connect us in a meaningful way, what keeps it from being human? It’s scary to hear the advancements and projections in this movie, then reflect that experts in the matter have mentioned that we aren’t really that far off.
Why did I say scary? Simply, I don’t want anyone to live what Theodore went through. For the people who have seen the movie, I think that I’m clear enough when I say that the concept of the relationship that Theodore ends up with Samantha (the OS names herself that), is maybe one of the most heartbreaking things that you could possibly hear - the scale of the violation of trust, impossible when considering the limits of person-to-person interaction, is what makes it shattering. The way I see relationships, is that if there’s love involved, that love implies a secret; there are certain things that you know about each other that no other person should know, because two people know the same secret at the same time could constitute a weakening of trust and potential sliding into betrayal. No matter what, you have those secrets. You own that about each other. (Of course, there's the idea of exes, but it should and can feel unique in its own way.) Maybe the people who saw this movie and can’t find themselves involved with it don’t think that way - maybe they have different ideas about how love works, and the suggestion of ownership (usually implied negatively in a far more physical way than in what I speak of in the case of the movie) is what makes them reject it. Anything remotely or conceptually referencing the elements of "ownership," that you can claim to own anything about your significant other, is something that bothers them, and that makes them hate it. While I understand how someone like this could absolutely despise the attitude of Theodore towards the end, I found myself sympathetic.
I haven’t had the chance to speak a lot about the movie with people (those who I have just don’t have anything to say about it except that they love it), but I have noticed it connecting with people around me of my age - friends from school and university are all falling for it, while slightly older people are just downright furious with the concepts presented and younger people are less impressed (if they even have an interest in seeing a movie like this). I think I know the reason why this movie is connecting with me in a deeper way than any other movie has recently - I think this might be the perfect movie for my generation. Hell, I could say that this might be THE movie of my generation, at least in this decade. It expresses and manages to present certain elements that make it tie in closely to our perceptions of the modern world. I am 24 years old and my friends age range from 22 to 25, and I think they can all relate to a simple list of things: we are maybe the last generation that wasn’t given an iPhone when we’re just born, the majority of us didn’t have a computer in our house until we were teenagers, and the Internet was a scarce and expensive medium of communication. Hence, we are maybe the most heavy users of new technologies (under our own preconceptions and limitations - we know when something won’t work and when something will) because we can still be awed and struck with wonder by them." -- Jaime Grijalba
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