HER

Directed by: Spike Jonze
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson
Running Time: 125 min

In the age of 2.0 everything is simplified, including relationship. Long gone the era of real life stalking preserved only for the creeps and mentally disturbed, now comes the era of digital crush and stalk.

How we show our self in the social media also plays a role in changing our lives. A short film titled Noah (which went viral) shows how facebook, skype and other social media platform change how we relate to each other. Now, what comes of love in this age of scroll and click?

Spike Jonze who disappoint me in Where the Wild Things Are shows a very intimate look on how a non human entity with artificial "humanity" can give a real feeling to a real human being. Joaquin Phoenix is Theodore Twombly, a 40 something divorced guy who lived in future Los Angeles (or Shanghai?). It is not clear which year but it does not matter since what matters is how Theodore finds love in a hopeless place even Rihanna can't find it. He finds it in Samantha (voiced beautifully by Scarlett Johansson) some sort of romantic Siri in iOs.

With her (pun intended), Theodore feels the love he longed. But Samantha isn't real. She has no body, she's just some artificial intelligence consisted of algorithms and stuff. No one can touch her. As their relationship develops, Samantha began to learns that human relationship is very complicated but rewarding.

Her deals with loneliness and the need to belong in someone, to lose yourself spiritually in the age where even talking to each other is very easy. The story is amazing, I really like it and the ending is one of the most bittersweet ending I have seen in a movie. Is it a grim satire? Yes. Is it romantic? Yes. I think it is grim and romantic at the same time.