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January 29, 2014
Alberta
North Portland
^înrtlanb (Observer
Page 9
Vancouver
East County
Beaverton
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Connecting
with <
Her’
O pinionated
J udge
Joaquin Phoenix
navigates technology
in search for love
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The subtle trick that opens "Her" gen­
tly prepares you for the complex emotional
terrain ahead. Joaquin Phoenix thought­
fully reflects to a loved one, in a tone of
utter sincerity, about the meaning of their
long relationship. Within successive
” e'S°"a'
beats, how ever, we learn of the
relationship's 50-year duration, then that
his perspective is female, and then we see
a computer producing what he intones
into handwritten form. A voice answers a
nearby
phone
"beautifulhandwrittenletters.com - please
hold” - and the camera pans out to several
others in a softly-lit office, intoning simi­
larly personal letters.
With this, writer-director Spike Jones
deftly signals that the film resides in a
world of the not-too-distant future, in
which the lines between genuine personal
interaction and mechanized communica­
tion have further blurred the indicia of
intimacy beyond the present world of
"sexting" and Twitter and status updates.
What he also conveys is that the film is
a safe context for exploring the most exis­
tential of questions. What makes commu­
nication authentic? Whose voice is speak­
ing when words of appreciation and long­
ing are expressed, in any context? How
much must one risk in order to achieve real
intimacy?
P hoenix's latter-d ay C yrano de
Bergerac, the melancholy Theodore
Twombly, doesn't display in real life the
effusiveness he lavishes on behalf of
people he has never met. He lives alone in
a future Los Angeles in which quiet trains
seem to have overtaken cars and everyone
is wearing button-up shirts and high-
waisted pants and is murmuring to his or
her voice-activated personal device.
Having sunk into isolation since sepa­
rating from his wife (who we see often in
flashbacks), it appears that Theodore's
human contact largely consists of anony­
mous (and creepy) phone sex encounters.
Finally, intrigued by a soft-focus adver­
tisement for the world's "first artificially
intelligent operating system," Theodore
continued
on page IS