Rich man’s 500 Days of Summer: This is love story at heart. It just happens that Joaquin Phoenix is dating his laptop.
Every year I watch about 60 movies that I’ve never seen before. About 15 of those movies are new releases. These 15 movies usually break out like this: top Oscar movies (last year it was Spotlight, The Revenant, and The Big Short), movies with directors or actors I love (Bridge of Spies, Ex Machina, and The Hateful Eight), and movies I’m excited about because they look cool (The Martian, Room, Inside Out, and Trainwreck). This leaves a few movies that are the 4th or 5th best release of that year somehow pass me by. These movies are out in the zeitgeist, so even though I’ve never seen the movie I usually know (or think I know) a basic plot about the movie. In 2015, it was Brooklyn, a movie about… Lesbians in Brooklyn? In 2014, it was Boyhood, a movie where a kid goes through childhood and Richard Linklater films it. In 2013, it was Her, where Joaquin Phoenix fucks an iPhone. Fortunately for me, Her is so much more than that.
Her is a near-future love story drama directed by Spike Jonze and stars Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, and Chris Pratt; it also features Scarlett Johansson as the voice of the titular artificial intelligence. The first thing that really pops out is the fact that the scenery doesn’t really pop out. It’s really amazing to me how well the design team captured the future. The city of L.A. is shown with a few futuristic touches, but there are no flying cars. Joaquin Phoenix works as a letter writer at for website called beautifulhandwrittenletters.com. Oh shit, that already exists! In the version represented in this film, Joaquin Phoenix is given information on the people writing the letters and creates both the letter and the content. From his phone to his apartment complex’s elevator, the whole world is beautifully moved a few decades into the future. Unlike some futuristic movies, not everything is clean or perfect; however, everything is updated. Much like the difference between ten years ago and now, many people still live basically the same lives, but now iPhones exist. People had smartphones 10 years ago, but now everything is much more widely integrated. Similarly, in Her, people still ride subways, they go to work, they go to bars. But they have strongly integrated computer systems linking their phone to their work computer to their home computer. The people of this world are always shown around the city with an earbud in their ear, talking to people, sending email, listening to music.
It might sound like I’m setting you up for a tirade about how the people in this world don’t have human interactions. Have you been on a New York subway recently?! Everyone’s faces are buried in their phones, reading articles and emails, and playing stupid candy crushing games! Have you heard about Pokemon Go? Kids running in front of cars to catch little rat things! Society these days! When I was a kid, the only computer we had was a neon Apple iMac G3 that also doubled as a boat anchor! This movie is not a cautionary tale. And while it’s true that the people in this film do not interact accidentally; they still interact purposefully. Joaquin talks to his friends Amy Adams and Chris Pratt. They go out to bars and go on outings. Overall, society in the future seems to continue. People seem to have a natural urge to socialize, whether or not technology has made it possible to exist without ever speaking to another human being. Personally, I’d like to subscribe to this point-of-view. The people that hole up with their computers are the same the holed up with their books 50 years ago, and their scrolls 1000 years ago. Technology might change, but the fundamental laws of humanity stay the same.
Overall, Her is a insightful movie that does what it sets out to do. The subtitle on the poster is “A Spike Jonze Love Story” for a reason. It asks some interesting questions about artificial intelligence, but they’ve been asked before; the point of the movie is not to think about technology, but to think about humans. Without having watched the movie, you might think the easy comparisons are The Terminator, A.I., and Blade Runner. However, it’s actually closer to Blue Valentine, Don Jon, and Lars and the Real Girl. At the end of the movie, I found I was more interested in what Joaquin Phoenix learned from his relationship than the ethical questions asked by Joaquin Phoenix dating an artificial intelligence.
Her isn’t available anywhere without paying a rental fee. But it’s a solid movie, check it out.
Next week Josh will be watching In Bruges. I finally sat down and watched this after hearing in recommended during an interview of Domhnall Gleeson. Domhnall’s father stars in the movie alongside Colin Farrell, so props to the interviewer for trying to make Domhnall feel small mid-interview. Anyway, In Bruges is baller and available on Netflix, so that’s nice.
cinemateur 