Seen at Cines Trueba in San Sebastian (Donostia)
Cecil says: To be honest, the trailers in cinemas hadn't made me rush to see this film. After all, the story of some geeky guy falling in love with a voice on his computer didn't really sound like my kind of movie.
But when you're in a foreign country - especially a country like Spain where the vast majority of foreign films are dubbed rather than subtitled - you sometimes have to go with the flow and see something you wouldn't normally choose to back home.
Actually, I enjoyed this film.
Theodore is far from geeky, though I'm not convinced that moustaches will come back into fashion a 'few years into future' when this film is supposedly set. He has a very creative job working for the wonderfully named BeautifulHandWrittenLetters.com, where his job is write very intimate letters for customers who clearly have better things to do in this not-too-distant future.
But his problem is that he is going through a divorce and he is feeling lonely, while struggling to separate fully from his estranged wife.
The film plots his growing relationship with an Operating System (OS), called Samantha (with Scarlett Johansson's voice), whose computer learns more about him the more they talk and gradually takes on human-like emotions, leading the two of them to fall in love.
On one level it's quite a plausible premise, when you look at a busy tube station or bus stop and everybody is glued to their smart phone these days, probably engaging with real friends, but who knows?
And on some levels, a computer that is programmed to meet all your needs and to adapt to any it can't quite meet is bound to seem quite alluring. But of course, although they have 'sex' together, there is the gap of real physical intimacy, which Samantha rather bizarrely suggests overcoming by calling in a 'surrogate' to play the part of a body. Things don't quite work out and, although to keep the plot going, Theodore somehow wants to maintain the relationship afterwards, as a viewer from that moment on it does seem doomed, and I couldn't help thinking that that was the point where he would stop things by saying: Hold on, No, this is not real.
But hey, the film needed to keep going another 45 minutes so instead they threw in a storyline where it's the Operating Systems (not just Theodore's) that move on and distance themselves.
This idea reminded me of that much scarier Dr Who episode where the aliens quickly learn how humans operate by copying and repeating everything, at first slowly and then faster and faster until they end up saying things before the humans have, and they go on to control humankind. So, although I enjoyed my evening in San Sebastian with this nice psycho-romance drama, I actually preferred the Dr Who version of a computer takeover.
But maybe in the not-too-distant future there will be more and more films like this...
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Bea says:
I have always been a fan of Scarlett Johansson - ever since Lost in Translation which I really, really liked (although thousands didn't), so although like Cecil I had my reservations about the plot, I was prepared to give it a go. Instead of Dr Who though, the plot reminded me of a terrible ?1970s ?1980s sci-fi movie called Demon Seed - anyone remember that one? - in which a computer tries to take over the world by impregnating a woman.
Associations aside however, this was a rather nice film about being lonely in the middle of life, in the midst of a city, and despite every available form of communication known to man in place. Loneliness is an enduring theme that everyone can relate to, and has frequently been explored in this type of winsome romantic city-set film (Breakfast at Tiffany's, Frankie and Johnny, to name a few). This just does it with a quirky twist - the use of an OS instead of a person - and maybe through that tries to tap into what it means to be human, or maybe doesn't quite get there. Joaquin Phoenix is superb, and carries the film as he is in nearly every scene and often alone. The writing is excellent, the cinematography wonderful and music and soundtrack is well used.
Definitely recommended - even if you think it's not for you. A particularly good option if you find yourself in a city, on a Sunday afternoon, with no friends around and on your own.
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