‘Her’ Is Here

variety.com:

Spike Jonze’s “Her” debuted in theaters in 2013, Siri was just 2 years old and Alexa was barely in the womb. Less than a third of relationships started on the internet, and dating apps were still on the fringes.

The term “artificial intelligence” rarely made it outside of tech circles. Back then, Jonze’s bizarro vision of the future, in which people fell in love with “operating systems” — handheld portals of infinite knowledge and companionship — seemed so far away.

In 2025, the year in which the film is widely accepted to take place, that future has arrived. “Her,” which won Jonze the Oscar for best original screenplay, stars Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore Twombly, a man with a hipster ’stache who is reeling from a divorce.

To salve his loneliness, he purchases an AI chatbot, Samantha, voiced with an extra dash of sultry by Scarlett Johansson. Theodore works as a professional letter writer, relaying heartfelt messages between husbands and wives, sons and mothers.