Her

As a grammarian, I commend Spike Jonze for using the objective case to name his comedy Her, because this futuristic tale, about a man who falls in love with his computer’s artificially intelligent operating system, is preoccupied with the old subject-object relationship. The subject is Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), a lonely bachelor in a sterile cityscape of the near future; his bland, bespectacled face, lit by icy blue eyes and bisected by a cheesy Tom Selleck moustache, fills the screen in gigantic close-ups. My own reaction to the movie was strongly subjective; it didn’t do much for me though it was well made and obviously would be a big zeitgeist favorite. With its story of a man giving in to digital solipsism, Her clearly captures the tenor of the times. But for me the ultimate test is whether a movie also transcends them. Read more.