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Health & Fitness

Movie Review - Her

Her *** (R) This quietly unsettling romantic dramedy might be more of a portent for the future than some would like to believe. It may presage the next level of virtual intimacy beyond whatever people are already doing with their laptops, tablets and phones. Joaquin Phoenix plays a lonely, nerdy guy who buys a very personal new operating system that gives him voice and text contact with a "partner" (voice of Scarlett Johannson) programmed to develop a unique personality suited to the customer derived from their interactions. Ironically, his job is writing letters for others who can’t adequately express themselves. This purchase aligns him with those clients who can’t, or won’t, handle all the risks and enigmas of flesh-and-blood relationships.

We get a light, sentimental account of how he bonds with "her"; initially as a guilty secret, but then as an open almost-couple spending time with others. It’s everything ship computer HAL hoped to achieve with astronaut Dave in 2001: A Space Odyssey. What seemed amusingly bizarre when that film opened in the late 1960s now comes across as an imminent option for the fragile and fearful among us. How far away can those applications be? How will we handle the temptations, or compete with the benefits a companion can offer who is perfectly synched with every user in all but one respect?

Versatile director Spike Jonze gives us a lyrical pace and setting for the course of his subject couple, showing how this sort of pairing might evolve in the context of the rest of one’s work and social life, with a few intriguing developments along the way. A key perspective posed by the script is that "the past is just a story we tell ourselves." If so, other than reproduction, how much difference does it make in the long run if the love of one’s life is a person or a program?

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Johannson’s voice keeps her end of the relationship surprisingly engaging for viewers, as well as the pleasures she/it provides the end user. Phoenix excels in making his guy relatable as an everyman, rather than a stereotypic loner...or even less-sympathetic creep.

This may not be much of a date movie, since excessive zeal for owning such a package by one would surely be interpreted as an insult or threat to the other half of the couple. Otherwise, the debate over just how isolated we may (or should) become in our progressively web-based existences can find plenty of talking points in this entertaining, yet cautionary, tale. (1/10/14)

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