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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