Her Review

Finally a futuristic movie with no fancy flying cars! With 78 wins and 174 nominations including an Oscar for Best Writing and Original Screenplay, The Golden Globe and the Academy award of Science Fiction, Her is a undoubtedly a remarkable postmodern science fiction Her, essentially, revolves around the life of Theodore Twombly (Joaquan Phoenix), a lonely, desolate and talented writer who works in a firm called BeautifulHandwrittenletters.com. His job is to write letters on behalf of his customers to their loved ones. Keyboards have become obsolete, Life has become much dependent on technology and so we see Theodore dictating the words of his letters while the alphabets appear on the screen of his desktop (imagination much?).The movie is set in a not-so-distant Los Angeles which replicates a much enhanced version of today’s world. It lacks actual face-to-face human interactions, liveliness or ‘life’ and instead Jones’ paints a drearier scenario where in everyone in spite of being around each other is alone and preoccupied with their phones.(Scarier? but so relatable!)In the movie, our hero is in a post split up phase where his estranged wife Catherine(Rooney Mara) has left him. His life is as miserable as it could with anonymous phone sex chats with crazy kittens (literally!) to checking out pictures pregnant nude celebrities .All this points to his vulnerability and escapism. Then enters Samantha (Scarlette Johanson), an advanced operating system-cum-emotional partner that evolves into an intuitive, separate entity which grow through her experiences. Theodore’s fascination for his new operating system grows and ultimately he falls in love with his computer (wait! She is not just a computer).There are complex questions of corporeality that the movie raises. After all, it’s her voice that he falls in love, it’s her intellect that wooes her. There’s pure love and much more. Her is a visual treat!