Her (2013) is absolutely brilliant

I stumbled upon this film because I was checking out the list of films leaving Netflix and this one showed up. I've heard of it before and to be fair outside of Joker I've never seen anything with Joaquin Phoenix in it.

I'm not sure how to describe it but watching the film and his acting, I felt the same level of awkwardness, discomforts and joys that Theodore Twombly (played by Joaquin Phoenix) goes through in the movie. It's really impressive to essentially have him act out so much emotion and he's basically alone most of the time. I imagine there was a real voice talking back to him when he was filming his scenes alone (otherwise that would just make it even more impressive).

It's the first movie I've seen that deals with an AI where there's no "human body" attached to it which I think really allowed it to explore situations that haven't typically been dealt with before. For example, what is sex in a relationship where you can't physically be with the person?

Another theme that gets touched on is the evolution of AI. Throughout the movie much like the relationship, the AI Samantha was evolving. Usually in movies that deal with AI it quickly goes in the direction of the "AI evolves and turns against human" plot that one would expect. This movie focuses on the first part for sure. And I think Scarlett Johansson did a great job humanizing the AI which is not something I was expecting.

It also deals with the pervasiveness of technology in our lives and how lonely it can be once you're essentially sucked in. Even perhaps more relevant this year given the amount of social isolation many people have had to go through and how much we've come to rely on technology for just about everything. An interesting development in the real world is how much more sophisticated sex dolls have become. I can't help but wonder what the real world would look like if an AI like Samantha existed and it could be attached to a "body".

As a side piece of trivia, Joaquin Phoenix's ex-wive (in the movie) is played by Rooney Mara. They have both been in a relationship since 2016 and just got engaged and had their first kid in the last year.

Anyways, if you haven't watched this film and have Netflix, it's going to be removed on Jan 1. Highly recommend it.

If you have watched this film before, do you have any other films that are similar or like it that you might recommend?

Submitted December 28, 2020 at 07:48AM by actualtext https://ift.tt/2KwSlL7