Her is so complex in simple ways, it’s hard to keep my thoughts brief and confined to a normal sized review. But I’ll try. This gem of a film by the gem of a director Spike Jonze dishes up two hours of quirky, heart breaking, humorous goodness in ways that are both familiar and uncomfortable.  Her tells the story of Theodore Twombly, a man who makes his living writing personal letters for people who are otherwise too busy or too out of touch to express their emotions themselves. His skill at tapping into the most touching thoughts of his clients, whom he gets to know over years of working with them, contrasts with his own inability to express himself. A quality which led to his divorce from the woman he obviously loves. Jonze fills the spaces in the back story by showing silent flashbacks, underscored by the dialogue of the current moment. In this way the present and the past collide in the same space.

Technology the social separator.

This anachronistic approach to story telling calls back the glory of silent movies, where image and gesture is more important than word, but also allows us users to get twice as much information at once while not fully going into flashback mode. This style is apparent in all the choices Jonze makes as director. The set and costume design both harken back to 1960’s concepts of modern but blend it with decidedly future tech. Including the central conceit of the film, an operating system that is so well designed it is a growing, sentient entity. Twombly walks around talking to Samantha, the name of his OS’s personality, wearing high waisted pants of ancient synthetic fabrics, amidst the funiture design of 60’s oranges and browns. He carries this amazing piece of future tech in his pocket, with a small screened touch device that resembles a cigarette case made from recycled Chrysler Cordoba’s. It all looks and feels like it’s supposed to be an old decade’s thoughts of the future, except it actually contains technology far beyond what we have today. It’s a brilliant move to take the movie out of place and time. It could be any big city in any era. And those specifics are neither important nor are they ever hinted at.

Nothing in the film specifically calls attention to itself. And that’s the genius which also reflects in the story. It’s an incredibly simple question asked that leads to incredibly complex answers. Namely, what would the world be like if our computers became so complete they developed personalities and could grow? It’s not a nefarious response that dystopian, Terminator-esque writers would typically fashion. It just asks the question. And as we explore this query we discover difficult ideas about the nature of life, what it means to be in love, what is important to happiness, and the human capacity to accept things beyond their original realm of experience.

If humans look like this, maybe computers would be sexy.

Twombly falls in love with his OS and he’s not the only one. Following this obvious result of making a digital person, we delve into a fascinating marketplace of ideas. Things like surrogate lovers who act as physical stand-ins for sex between the operating system and the human they love. The humans themselves asking if it makes sense to fall in love with a computer. If a computer is even an appropriate term for it anymore. As an audience we are asked to consider these notions ourselves but also we get to see the bigger picture and wonder if the connections with the OS’s actually disconnects society from its own kind.

The love Twombly has with Samantha brings him out of his shell. It allows him to finally come to terms with his divorce. It allows him to start being honest with himself and others. It gives him a new lease on life. It brings him closer to his best friend Amy, who also starts falling for her OS, that fills in when she breaks up with her long time human boyfriend.

The pacing of Her is deliberate. And there are times where I thought maybe, just maybe it was getting a wee bit boring, but just at that moment, Jonze hits us upside the head with another revelation we might not be considering or a piece of sideways humor that you never saw coming. Samantha and Twombly grow, but at different rates. And this leads to conflict as we try to place our human morals upon a device which is just flat out different from us.  Can an OS cheat on a human since it can process so many things at once, including multiple relationships, unlike the human brain which does one thing at a time. And since it’s a function of being a multiprocessing computer, is it really cheating?

DNA for a logo. I wonder if that forebodes anything.

I think more movies can be written this way and I wish they would. Just ask a simple question, a what if, and let the car chases happen when they feel natural.

It seems appropriate that in a movie about a high tech world where a nerd falls in love with an OS, I would walk out of the theater behind two nerdier Seattleites. One of them adjusted the weight of the backpack hanging from his shoulder and proclaimed that the Brian Cox voice cameo was completely obvious but that he doesn’t mind cause Brian Cox is awesome and has a sultry voice. Then they engaged in a nerdy but excited conversation about how they don’t get to say Deus Ex Machina enough in everyday life.

This movie is for them.

But it’s also for me.

And it’s also for you.

At 126 minutes it plays like 131 because of those few moments where I got worried it hinted at getting boring, yet never did quite allow that. The pacing is so deliberate that it couldn’t seem shorter. But none of this is a negative. And frankly, the phone sex hotline scene is worth the price of admission alone.

Go see Her.