How's Her?
I'd prefer people to go in fresh to this movie as I was basically able to. I'd read some reviews for it a few months back but had forgotten a lot of what was said when I finally saw. With this warning in place, I'll give you my thoughts on it and try to stay as spoiler free as possible but I will mention some things that occur in the movie. You've been warned.
First, it is such a unique film. I just can't figure out what to compare it with. At the same time, it is odd in that I'm not sure it really turns over any new ground. While the premise of the movie is a man falling in live with a computer or artificial intelligence and thus may seem to be about our ever increasing dependence on technology or communicating mainly through it, it is really an examination of love and how it affects a person. Yet in both those points mentioned, as I've thought about the movie since, I feel like these things have probably been done before. I mean there's plenty of movies that have focused on love. It is to the movie's credit that when watching it, it still feels so fresh and new as if this is the first time cinema has examined this subject.
I think it helps with the way the movie sort of floats along. I've been reading some criticisms people have of this movie. People feel it dragged or that it felt bland looking. Personally, I loved it. I found it gave the movie a bit of a dreamy quality. Most of the images and scens have light pastoral colors which I think are the best representation of how one sees the world when in love. The slower pace gives you more time to sort of go through the same emotions as the main character and also to react a bit to what you are watching.
The main character himself is a man lost and adrift. At one point, his new operating system, Samantha, starts organizing his computer and mentions he has a lot of contacts and must be pretty popular. Yet, we never really see that. By my count, I think he only talks to 7 other people throught the movie. He's a man who's become isolated and isn't sure who he is anymore or if life has passed him by. As he says to one character (which I'll try and paraphrase frm memory) he feels as if he has experienced every emotion he can to their fullest and all that is left for him is to keep experiencing those emotions but at a lesser amount. That was something that stuck with me since as one gets older, it is definitely something you start to wonder. Has the best in life already come and gone? It's another reason why I love the cinematography and pace of the movie because it just helps put us further into this characters mindset. Finally, as far as I'm concerned Joaquin Phoenix should win the Best Actor Oscar. However, he's not nominated which I think is the biggest error the Oscars made this year. No other performance impressed me more this year. The range of emotions he was able to express and make you feel alongside with him despite having a disembodied voice to work with as a partner is top notch. I'd compare it to Colin Firth in The King's Speech which was the last time I was so impressed by a performance after seeing a movie.
This is one of the few movies this year where the music stood out for me as well partly because it stops a couple times to focus on it and bring it to the forefront but it all blends in so well and helps keep you in the atmosphere of this film.
The biggest hurdle most people seem to have with this movie and maybe be its weakest link is in the artifical intelligece of Samantha. I've seen many people complain about how unreal it was and how advanced it had to be. I admit, when it first boots up and appears, I didn't expect it to be at the level it was. I thought the movie might take some time for it to adapt and keep learning about its human user. While some of that does happen, it starts out of the gate at being able to recognize human emotion in the sound of a person's voice. I guess you could compare it a bit to the H.A.L. 9000 unit. Regardless, after a few moments of disbelief about it, I just accepted it as being advanced from the get-go and just went back to following the main character's journey. That's why I say the movie is more about reflections of love and how we all can attach our emotions on to various things and how that affects us. However, other can see it differently.
While the Samantha system also has a journey from where she/it begins to the end, her journey is not as well fleshed out and, at times, I'm not sure you ever quite believe she is really feeling these emotions or understand her thinking. Nor may you care for how that journey ends. Maybe it is having watched Data on ST:TNG always try to understand human emotion but never able to (without his emotion chip) that it just seems hard to see an aritificial intelligence develop a consciousness so fast that it could be experiencing emotions so rapidly. Frankly, at some points, I just though of it all as a long-distance romance with the main character just on the phone with Samantha. That is probably what the film is going for anyways. To make us view Samantha as a real person like the main character does despite not being able to see her. As I watched the movie, I had a couple ideas of how I thought it might end and while it comes close to both of them a bit, it still ended in a different way than expected.
All in all, I loved the atmosphere, the tone, the main character's journey and the different points to ponder about life and love when it was over. While I'd like to bring up more of them, I am trying to keep from saying too much and spoil it for anyone. I would like to add a congratulations to Chris Pratt though for having now apppeared in an Oscar nominated Best Picture for 3 years in a row. I didn't know he was in this movie until he appeared onscreen. If anyone else watches Parks and Recreation, you should know how mindblowing that is if you know his character Andy and even a bit of how he is in real life. Not the sort of person you'd ever think of to have pulled off a rare feat like that. Probably helps that Best Picture nominations have gone from 5 to a potential 10 a year.
Topic: 2014 Oscars. Ranking the movies and your opinions on the 2013 movie scene. (Read 20811 times)
