Her

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams
Directed by: Spike Jonze (“Where the Wild Things Are,” “Being John Malkovich”)
Written by: Spike Jonze (“Where the Wild Things Are”)

The last decade of technological advances have irreversibly altered the way we humans communicate. Regular old cell phones were one thing—their ubiquity in the early 2000s led to a society where we were just a phone call away at all times. Smartphones, however, have created a culture wherein we’re connected every second of the day. From the dependable old text message to the messenger program Facebook shoved down our mobile throats to push notifications from apps like Instagram and Twitter, most people live their lives in a state of constant connectivity. Even as we go about our lives, we’re living another life online.

“Her,” from quiet genius Spike Jonze, imagines a not-too-distant future where such sought-after tech like artificial intelligence has become commonplace enough to be available for the average Joe’s personal computer. A lonely professional letter writer named Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) downloads his copy, which boots up as a female and names herself Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). As Samantha grows and adapts, her relationship with Theodore deepens to the point of genuine love.

Writer/director Jonze could have easily made “Her” into an unsubtle indictment of the isolated way we live our lives today: noses buried in our smartphones, constantly communicating via Facebook and other social networks in lieu of real personal contact, to the point we’d be foolish enough to think an online relationship could take the place of real human interaction. Instead Jonze veers the other way and creates accepting and believable world wherein a lonely man can fall in love with an artificially intelligent operating system and have it be seen as the natural evolution of human relationships, not the laughable misadventures of a sad sack.