Her (Jonze, 2013)

There's a reason Her's subtitle is "A Spike Jonze Love Story". 

The director, known for his dream-like films Being John Malkovich and Where the Wild Things Are, presents a romance with an only-slightly-sci-fi scenario. A man (Joaquin Phoenix), falls in love with his artificially intelligent operating system (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). Of course, there's more than just that, but on the surface-level it's a simple look at the state of modern relationships, where a man falling in love with his computer is not such a strange concept. 

The production design is beyond beautiful, as the attention to the details is staggering. Everyone on set has earpieces that connect them to their OS's, and most of them spend their time in the background chatting away to an unknown recipient. Each actor is costumed in brightly-colored outfits, marking a possible turn in the fashion of the next few decades. And, of course, the AI's are personalized and almost human, much like Apple is trying to replicate with Siri. 

Joaquin Phoenix is perfectly cast as Theodore, the creepy and socially awkward central protagonist. He is the man that would fall for his OS Samantha, a sexy fantasy that is literally designed to be the perfect companion for him. Later in the movie, there's a majestic, Oscar-nominated song that serves as a conduit between the real emotions of Theodore and the simulated feelings of Samantha. It's a wonderful romance story, and we as the audience actually start to believe that this futuristic form of love can work. 

But being Spike Jonze, he doesn't stop there. Instead, he takes audiences on a bizarre, seemingly endless trek through nearly every phase of a relationship- the ups, the downs, the weird, the uncomfortable, the friendly, and anything in between. 

This is where Her lost its appeal for me. The concept is strong enough, and combined with the crisp writing, Jonze's film should have been a masterpiece. However, the director could not let a good thing end, so he keeps it going for no less than forty-five minutes of unnecessary and out-of-left field subplots. Every interesting idea, every wonderful concept that was established in the first half is lost by the time the meandering second part rolls around. 

Amy Adams, Her's anchor and arguably all-around most likable character, says during the film that "falling in love is a form of socially acceptable insanity". I fell in love with this film at the beginning, and thought it could have been Hollywood's most creative romance of the past decade. However, I soon discovered that loving Her would be insanity, as Spike Jonze's clear point is that falling in love only leads to heartbreak. 

It really is a Spike Jonze romance.

Three out of five stars.