I really didn't know what to expect other than that it was going to be odd, weird, quirky and hopefully original given the pedigree of Spike Jonze's writing and direction as well as Joaquin Phoenix's acting. I saw the trailer once as background noise and really didn't pay much attention to it other than "some dude falls in love with Siri". That's what I thought the movie was going to be. But I also thought it was going to be somewhat of a farce in the process of their relationship. What I didn't expect it to be was a serious look at modern day romances, which this absolutely is. Take away the surface of Man falling in love with an Operating System and look at it from within and you will see it mirroring the reality of all relationships: The good, the bad and the confusing and what you have is Her. I thought everything about the movie was great, especially the writing.

A little backstory for myself to explain why I really dig this movie. About 10-12 years ago I wrote a very similar story about the perils of romances starting online. When I first got my computer, it opened up a whole new world and one of the first things that I got into was  Online Messaging. I met a girl and we texted for awhile before moving onto chatting on the phone and then eventually to meeting in person. I took the basis of this new adventure and used it for a short screenplay that I had written. I wrote a few drafts of it. One was more of a comedy and the other altered version was more serious in tone. They both had two drastically different endings because I really didn't know how I wanted to portray and tell the story.

So, I was very curious how Spike would end his version, which happened to be one of the two that I had settled on. It wasn't original at all on my part. It was actually informed by other movies I had seen. You know where the Boy is pursuing the head cheerleader or popular girl all the while not realizing the girl he should be with is right next door (See Some Kind of Wonderful). I really need to find where I put my drafts. They are on a HD for sure, but it's using software that is outdated. I know for a fact that I have a few printed copies as I gave them out to a few people ro read and get feedback on. Anyway, fantastic movie. Great performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson as the voice of Samantha. I spent the entire movie trying to guess who the voice was and she kept popping up. It sounded like here, but I wasn't 100% positive on that. Highly recommend this as a Rent.

I love the look of this movie... outside of the fantastic cinematography (so expansive, not IMAX but so much on the screen), I'm just in love with the low-impact, streamlined future.  The computer interfaces are simple, practically retro, the phone is like an old cigarette case... did you notice there aren't any cars anywhere?

While I didn't write a screenplay about dating a computer, like some people here, earlier this year I was putting together a sci-fi story (that I had to ditch, sadly) and I couldn't help but be influenced by the world of Her, even if my future doesn't look anything like that one.

Samantha's ringtone is now my ringtone, incidentally.  And I love it.  It just sounds so elegantly simple.

Heres the Ringtone, incidentally.