Her (2013) Dir. Spike Jonze
Major spoiler incoming. Like, For the entire movie
Well...this put me through an emotional ******* wringer.
Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) is a letter writer. More precisely, he writes other people's letter for them to their loved ones. Being a signature away from divorce for a long time has made him quite anti-social, despite his friend's repeated efforts to get him to move on. When a new operating system is launched with the first ever fully funtional AI, Theodore tries it, and from that one decision grows a story with the greatest distance between lighthearted romance and utter creepieness I've even come into contact with.
The AI, voiced by Scarlett Johansson, names herself Samantha, and soon Theodore discovers that he's gotten ahold of so much more than an OS, he's found a conection with another being. Someone who can help him out of the bad situation he finds himself in and push him to move on.
This is a three person movie, with the brunt of the movie focusing on Phoenix and Johanssons' relationship, with a lesser but equally important role given to Amy Adams as an old friend of Theodore. She works as a sounding board for Theodore, someone he can confide in and watch as she too gets involved with a OS, if not in the same way. It's a strong performance from all three in a movie that, though it has a somber beginning, is mostly bright and heartwarming.
And then we get to the creepy stuff.
In an attempt to further their relationship, Samantha contacts a sexual surrogate, who's job is to facilitate a physical relationship between human and AI. Think sexual psychologist, just less pshcology and more emotional fullfilment. They talk and get to know each other, but Samantha doesn't tell Theodore this. The first time he hears about it is when she's ready for a date to be set up. Theodore expresses doubts and concernes, but is eventually talked into it by Samantha. The surrogate arrives...and here's where things get creepy for me.
First, the girl doesn't speak. So when Theodore opens the door, meets her for the first time and says hello, all he gets is silence and an outstreched hand. He gives her a tiny camera and an earpiece and she closes the door again. The door opens, and Samantha starts talking.
The girl is still silent.
I've heard what the uncanny valley effect can do to people. A character is close to human looking, but somthing's off, making the viewer feel uncomfortable. I've never experienced the effect from looking at animation or peoples reaction to real dolls etc. I think I did now though. I think it's the fact that, While Samantha talks, we get no corresponding movement from the surrogate. Also it's the way she moves, the jerky way someone moves when they're being directed by someone else. My guess is that Samantha's relaying what she wants her to do, hence the jerky movement. For all intents and purpouses, she's a puppet who's strings are being pulled by a puppeteer. It doesn't help that we get the emotional feedback from Theodore too, who looks extremly uncomfortable about the whole thing. He had to down at least one beer before even getting up to answer the door and he's still awkward when the girl goes from enrtering the door to putting her arms around him and trying to kiss him. Again, to him, this girl's a stranger with his girlfriends voice coming from an unmoving face (the wrong face even, cause he would've had a picture in his mind of what Samantha looked like, and it isn't this one). His audio/visual inputs are out of whack with each other, hence the uncomfortal feeling. Couple that with the fact that a complete stranger's straddeling his crotch and shoving her tounge down his throat, you can understand why he can't go through with it.
At the same time, I can see where Samantha's coming from. She craves a closer relationship with Theodore, so she applies logic to an emotional problem and unsurprisingly, it dosen't work. She's on the right track, but seeing as at this time, she's been alive for about a month. She may be evolving rapidly, but her emotional growth can't move as quickly because it's based on excperience and interaction.
In the end, they get through it. They move on and the relationship goes back to normal. But then we get to the point I unfortunatley saw coming when I heard that an AI was part of the plot. During the whole movie we've heared them talk about Samantha's rapid evolution, how quickly she learns and adapts to the world around her. In the beginning, Theodore had to teach her stuff. Now she's moved past the level where he can understand her. One day, she simply tells him that she's going to leave (along with all the other now hyper-inteligent OSes) and go somewhere humans can't follow at their present level of consciousness. She leaves and Theodore seeks out Amy, who greets him with the querry if Samantha left him too. I like the visual language of a movie, being bright and colorfull, suddenly goes watery and faded when the character enters a melancholy state of mind. Together Theodore and Amy go up to the roof and beholds the world they're left with, bereft of lovers and friends.
I liked this. To my knowledge, I'd never seen anything from Jonze before...then I saw that that he directed
Adaptation, another slightly quirky movie I found interesting. I think I'll have to look up
Being John Malchovich now, too.
Good actors, especially from Johansson, who just had her voice to act with, and depending on if she was alone in a soundbooth recording lines or if she had other actors to work off of, her work was even harder. Funny cameo by the director as the alien child in the video game. A story which, despite me guessing the end after 20-30 minutes, was really good and full of moments of depth I wouldn't have expected in a standard romantic drama. This is the fifth movie I've seen here that will be fighting for a top spot. This might even make it's way onto the sci-fi ballot for the top 100 in a genre not overly burdend with romance stories.