Her: Faced with this marvel, our heart could no longer stop beating (critic)

“No one plays the crystallization of love better than Joaquin Phoenix. Nobody.”

Released at the beginning of 2014 in France, Her shocked the public. In the United States, it was released a little earlier, on December 18, 2013. The film Spike Jonzeinspired by his own divorce from with Sofia Coppolais celebrating its tenth anniversary today.

Her follows a lonely man (Joaquin Phoenix) gradually falling in love with Samantha, the artificial intelligence that governs his cell phone, his personal computer, etc. It is Scarlett Johansson which doubles it in VO and Audrey Fleurot in VF. Why doesn’t the American star have her usual voice? All explanations are to be read here. And our review “falling for something” is here.

Shh! The artificial intelligences of 2001 and Her are in full discussion

In 1964, the writer Isaac Asimov predicted what would happen to us fifty years later, arguing that boredom would be the evil of the century. Spike Jonze brilliantly proves him right through this virtual romance treated in the manner of Sofia Coppola of Lost in TranslationJonze sharing with the director this same ability to fill the void while leaving blanks.

Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), his face broken by pain, lives in slow motion, haunted by images of vanished happiness and the memory of his ex (the so fragile Rooney Mara), of which he lost sight. The sweet dreamer only opens the door to his inner universe to an artist friend (Amy Adams) and drowns himself in new technologies to forget his pain. Something inside him was broken that needed to be repaired.

Nothing connects him to the real world, not even the touching words of a colleague who, through a compliment, reveals a sensitivity that he had underestimated. Nothing beats Samantha, this haunting machine voice, suave and sexy (Scarlett Johansson, who we never see on screen) who seemed to have been waiting for him for an eternity, light years away from the urban chaos. It was a lightning bolt that shook the gray sky of his existence and awakened long-dormant feelings.

Why do we instantly love this hero and therefore this film? Maybe because no one plays love crystallization better than Joaquin Phoenix. Person. Jonze moves forward with this character because despite the grief, you have to move forward.

And his film respects the rhythm of the broken clock, the space-time between the near past and the previous future. To allow yourself everything. To rediscover the metaphysical sexuality of In the shoes of John Malkovich (making love through another body) and explore a new one with more imagination than any video available on YouPorn. To flexibly mix the stupidest gags on earth with degenerate video games. To upset, too.

Because behind the apparent harmlessness, the clumsiness of the replies or the polite humor emerge the cruelty and the spleen of a fable about an era – ours – which appears under cover, withdrawn into its past, shrouded in neutrality and doubt. A time when we, hipster androids in search of intensity, have to deal with the iPhone, the addiction to social networks and their tendency to develop narcissism, and with our dreams of electric sheep. Also, in front of this marvel, our heart could no longer stop beating.

Sofia Coppola still hasn’t watched Her: “I don’t want to see myself as Rooney Mara”