"Her" Movie Review

            

           

            

            Her is a new film that was released initially in December of 2013, but it was limited. Now we are getting a nationwide release so that, among all of garbage in January, we get to have something good. The studio did the same thing with Lone Survivor. This film is written and directed by Spike Jonze and stars Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, and very briefly, Olivia Wilde. It takes place in the near future and is about a sad, lonely man who downloads and operating system for his computer that comes with artificial intelligence and stars to build a relationship with this machine, which takes him on a ride through an interesting story.

If I saw this film last year, it would have been number one on my top ten best movies of 2013 list. As you see from my rating, I loved this movie. It is an amazing film. It is one of the best films I have ever seen and it may be in my list of my all-time favorite movies. It is a brilliant film that is meant to be looked at metaphorically, and that is the way I looked at it. It has other underlying themes throughout the film, but the main one is the difference between real and fake feelings. It is about knowing if feelings are fake and real and many other messages like that, which I will not spoil. From the first shot of the film, this theme is intact.

 I loved every second of this film. It is a ride into what relationships are like and what they could be like. And several things in this film are perfect. The direction is amazing and one of the perfect things. Every shot means something and Jonze really uses the camera to flesh out the feelings of a character. But he also reaches to us, the audience, and making us feel what the main character is feeling. He is also about to make us feel emotions that follow what route the themes are on. When something is supposed to feel off and strange, I felt off and strange. And when there is any form of anything that could be remotely intense, my heart was pounding. I got so in to this movie with every single plot point.

The writing is also a perfect element of it. Every line means something and ever line seems real. The characters also seem real. In fact, about an hour into this film, I started finding myself forgetting I was watching a movie and thinking that these are real people. And I kept on doing it for the rest of the film. The story is so unconventional and is told unconventionally. Every plot point is so unpredictable that I stopped trying to predict what was going to happen. And the ending is the perfect ending to the film that does exactly what it needs to do literally and metaphorically. Another brilliant and amazing thing about the writing is the chemistry between Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson. It is spectacular. And there is chemistry between Phoenix and every other person in the film. This is a brilliant movie.

Yet another perfect thing about the movie is the editing. Everything is edited into the film so well and at such the right timing to make the film keep on its themes and make the audience feel like they should along the themes and with the main character. It is amazing and brilliant. It works so well to put you in this mood and make you feel a certain way that rides along with the themes. The score is put into the film at such the right times to make the film better and to make the audience feel certain emotions. The score is also excellent itself. Everything comes to play at exactly the right time and are used in exactly the right way.

I have even another perfect thing about the movie: the themes. The themes are incredibly powerful, incredibly brilliant, and executed in a perfect way. This is the best execution of putting themes into a film that I have ever seen. They are constantly explored in an unconventional and realistic way. Little hints are given that force the audience to pay attention to the film to get the full story. The themes are constantly used, and that is not bad at all. They are brilliant themes put into the film perfectly.

            One final perfect thing about the film is the cinematography. Everything looks a bit futuristic, but not too much. The film is shot so well to the point of which it looked like the real world. Not once did the film look like a film. It all looked real. Every shot of this film looked like a real person in a real room with real objects. This is one of the best jobs I have ever seen done by a cinematographer.

            The performances are excellent. Joaquin Phoenix is nearly perfect in his role and Scarlett Johansson is probably perfect in hers. Amy Adams is excellent in her role, and so are Olivia Wilde and Rooney Mara. Every actor also plays a part in helping the audience feel like Joaquin Phoenix and still ride along with the tones. Certain scenes would be incredibly hard to pull off by an actor, but the scenes were pulled off extremely well.

            This film kept my heart pounding and I was riveted in many scenes. Throughout the second and third act, with everything that was not how the audience was supposed to want it to be, I felt off. I could not wait to hear the next line of dialogue in a huge amount of scenes, and I wanted things to be how Joaquin Phoenix wanted them to be. The film is incredibly powerful and I felt a lot of intensity over semi-small plot points.

Her is an amazing movie, and saying it is excellent is an understatement.

            I loved every second of Her. Through themes perfectly illustrated in it, the film tells a brilliant story and being itself, it is almost perfect.