Movie review: Her

Movie review: HER Unless a movie has a ton of CGI and stuff that blows up I’m not going to spend 20 something dollars to go to the theater for dialogue driven stories. I do prefer a good movie and story without all of the pandering to the lowest common denominator but I still like to see shit blow up too. That said the movie, “Her” with Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson and directed by Spike Jonze. The premise of the film is lonely guy falls in love with an artificial intelligence system. Ted and Samantha a love story to ponder more so than any other love story you have seen asking truly what is love? This thing that really motivates us to do almost everything we do. The question most of us seem to ask is how can you love something that isn’t there that isn’t real. I think what Spike Jonze asks in the film is what is real and what isn’t real. Our emotions are not some thing we can lay our hands on we can’t hold them, touch them or do anything with them. I am in love, I am angry, I am sad. Why are you any of those things and how do you know. We experience things and then we define them as one thing or other. Then as we see other things or gain information we related it to what we already know. So how is our seeing a couple we don’t know in an embrace in a photograph and having an emotional response to that any different than an artificial intelligence having a definition of an emotion and being able to recognize that emotion for what it is and respond. Have you ever read a piece of fiction and responded emotionally. I know I’ve heard, oh I hate this character or that character or I so love this character. These are not real people but we respond to them emotionally. So if a computer could learn and experience and evolve and have an understanding of the world beyond it’s programming to the point it could have original thoughts, would that be different than our own experiences. Wouldn’t that relationship be just as real as one you have with a pen pal that lives in a place far away from you that you’ve never met? You can connect to that person emotionally over time and have a real connection to them. Look forward to their letters the same as you would a love one coming home at the end of the day or visiting after a long absence. Could you love and grow a relationship that benefited both sides, completely on an intellectual level without any physical contact. We become attached to things we have been given or buy because we associate meaning to them and they remind us of something. The memories are really what we have and the thing is just a thing with or with out the thing the experience still exists but we still mourn the loss of the physical connection. Do we need to physical part of the relationship for it to be real or do we really only love those we love in our minds and all the physical stuff is our inability to verbally express how we really feel not because we are not smart enough but because as a species we haven’t evolved our vocabulary to express what it means to hold someone else’s hand in ours. But is what you feel emotionally, what they feel? You can never know for sure and because we say we love someone does it really mean we love them or are we only saying the words to manipulate the other person for some other physical gratification. Overall I really enjoyed the movie and feel it is worth watching. However, the pacing is a little slow at times and could have been a bit shorter than the 2 hour run time. All the supporting cast Amy Adams, Chris Pratt, and Rooney Mara and others ground this story so well and has something almost anyone can relate to a good or bad relationship. Ultimately do we love the people we are with and in our lives or do we love our memories of them. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015