The Her of this heterosexual love tale is a futuristic computer operating system that communicates verbally like a real, albeit invisible, woman. Her voice is raspy and slightly annoying; imagine Scarlett Johansson without the looks; but her personality is decidedly charming. That a man, especially a lonely divorcee named Theodore, could find himself romantically intrigued by her is the believable part. That he’d turn down immediate sex from two real (attractive) women for the sake of his relationship with her stretches the believability factor quite thin. She doesn’t even have a pussy. He has to imagine one while masturbating to the sound of her groaning.

A relationship is supposed to be about more than the physical stuff, of course; I guess that’s the point; but the physical stuff is important, as even the computer girl, named Samantha, acknowledges. She’s mostly jokey and easy-going but seems to suffer from the Pinocchio complex of wanting desperately to experience life as a real (physical) human-being. But human-beings fall out of love; a fact Theodore knows all too well. Whether or not that also goes for operating systems programmed to learn and evolve is anyone’s guess. It’s a chance Theodore is willing to take. If that all seems silly, it is. Her is a silly concept movie that only occasionally arouses real emotion.

my rating : 3 of 5

2013