by Thom Yee

her images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

her is one of those movies most people will go into very consciously.  You won’t just be giving it a try on a “larf”, you won’t be buying your ticket, sight unseen, and you won’t be settling down into your seat not knowing what to expect.  If you see it, you’ll be seeing it very deliberately.  You’ll know exactly what you’re getting into.  You’ll know you’ll be seeing a quirky, Oscar-nominated film and you’ll know there’ll be at least a degree of self-questioning.  Perhaps the only thing you won’t know is how it could possibly end in anything other than complete and utter heartache that will leave you shattered… gutted.  And in some ways, you’ll know that that’s the main reason you’re going to see it in the first place.

It’s a funny little movie.  It explores the extraordinary questions of our collective, modern zeitgeist — the nature of existence, the nature of reality, the progress of technology, programming, memory and the singularity — but only on the surface.  The deep thoughts that question existence itself are mere table stakes, the empty, insubstantial detritus of a film that’s aiming far higher.

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