Road to the Oscars: Day Six (Her)

Falling in love is a crazy thing to do. 

It's kind of like a socially acceptable form of insanity.

Post contains minor spoilers. 

I find the whole concept behind ‘Her’ very interesting. It freaks me out how possible this future could be. 'Her' is a movie about Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) who is living in a future city of Earth/America. In this future everyone is very reliant on technology already, but this new Operating System (OS) comes out that is like having a friend and a computer in one and is basically meant to be suited specifically to you. Theodore's OS is named Samantha, and she is voiced by Scarlett Johansson. I find the idea of having my own ‘Samantha’ quite exciting. Someone to always talk to, and that always wants to talk to you and know about your day. I don’t know, I guess I just find that idea quite comforting. I suppose that really says something about my life, doesn’t it? I don’t think, however, I would ever be a person who could fall in love with one an OS. At the beginning, where Theodore and Samantha were just meeting and getting to know each other, I found myself smiling along and thinking it was quite cute how quickly they had become close friends. When they started 'dating' however, I found myself starting to cringe a little. I was not as comfortable with it as some characters in the movie were. 

I think it would have been extremely hard for both Johansson and Phoenix. Johansson, because she had to make sure her voice was exactly on point with every single thing she said. It had to convey so much emotion, and I think she managed to pull it off spectacularly. If I was going to fall in love with anyone’s voice, Scarlett’s would definitely be on that list (Ben Whishaw, Tom Hiddleston and Bianca Lawson are all on that list too by the way). Phoenix had the difficult task of having to always be on camera, even when it was Samantha talking. His face had to play for two characters. Again, I think the casting was pretty darn perfect. I really enjoyed Amy Adams' character, also named Amy, and Rooney Mara’s character, Catherine. I think the two women, who were quite different in their personalities and different in roles they played in Joaquin’s life, really gave depth to the story and added to my understanding and feelings towards Johansson’s OS character. 

This movie won't win Best Picture, but it is certainly thought-provoking and an extremely interesting movie to see. I highly would recommend watching it with an open mind. 

As always, let me know in the comments what you thought if you've seen it!