Her
Spring 2014 Features series
Sunday, May 11, 2014 at 8:00pm
Acadia Cinema's Al Whittle Theatre
450 Main Street, Wolfville, NS
Directed by Spike Jonze
Screenplay by Spike Jonze
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams, and Joaquin Phoenix
Rated 14A ·
2h 6m
USA
English
Her
Set in the Los Angeles of the slight future, Her follows Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix; The Master, Hotel Rwanda), a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching, personal letters for other people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship with his wife Catherine (Rooney Mara; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Social Network), he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive entity in its own right, individual to each user. Upon initiating it, he is delighted to meet “Samantha,” a bright, female voice (Scarlett Johansson; Vicky Cristina Barcelona), who is insightful, sensitive and surprisingly funny. As her needs and desires grow, in tandem with his own, their friendship deepens into an eventual love for each other.
From the unique perspective of Oscar-nominated filmmaker Spike Jonze (Where the Wild Things Are, Being John Malkovich) comes an original love story that explores the evolving nature—and the risks—of intimacy in the modern world.
The film also stars Amy Adams (The Master, Julie & Julia) and won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
“Her may be the most technologically astute movie since Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: a Space Odyssey. And as the friendly ghost in the machine, Samantha is a more inviting companion for the great leap forward than HAL9000 could ever dream of being.” (Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
“It is a love story. Also a profoundly metaphysical meditation on what it means to be human. Also one of the more touchingly relevant movies to the ways we actually live and may soon live. Oh, and the year’s best film, or at least the one that may stick with you until its story line comes true.” (Ty Burr, Boston Globe)
“What’s surprising is that Jonze has taken what could easily have been a glib screwball comedy and infused it instead with wry, observant tenderness and deep feeling. Phoenix delivers a quietly heroic, even Chaplinesque turn as an Everyman contemplating the nature of the self and the soul that lies within. At its core, Her is about listening, and both Phoenix and Johansson — who delivers an astonishing vocal performance — make that experience anything but passive.” (Ann Hornaday, Washington Post)