Her

Bobbins and I watched the movie Her the other night.  It is a futuristic tale of a man getting divorced who falls in love with his operating system, which is brilliantly cast as Scarlett Johansson.  It's a slower movie heavy on dialogue.  I actually fell asleep toward the end, which had more to do with my own tiredness than the quality of the film.  It's beautifully shot in Los Angeles and Shanghai, and Joaquin Phoenix once again proves his acting chops.  Coming from eccentric director Spike Jonze, it's not your typical Holllywood film, but it's the kind of work that had me thinking about it for days afterward.  Unlike most pieces set in the future, it actually embraces technology and the challenges it poses, and includes a nice, even classic, twist at the end.

One thing I didn't see mentioned in critiques was the similarity to Sofia Coppola's Oscar-winning feature, Lost in Translation, which I really liked and own on DVD.  Her is Jonze's response to Coppola, his ex-wife.  In LiT, the main character is a young woman unsure of her marriage to a zany director/photographer.  In Her, the main character is a middle-aged man trying to cope with the heartbreak of divorce.  Both films were written by their directors, and are set in East Asia.  Coppola won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for LiT, and I bet Jonze wins this year for Her.

I enjoyed LiT more, but Her is worth the time if you want the visuals, good acting, and thought-provoking ideas.