run time: 126 mins
rated: 14A
considered: Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi
starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Pratt, Olivia Wilde
movie summary: Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) is a lonely and somewhat depressed guy who is going through a divorce from his high school sweetheart Catherine (Rooney Mara). Twombly works for a romantic card/letter writing company that takes personal information from customers and produces long lasting memories. He hasn’t dated since his marriage fell apart and spends most of his nights browsing personal ads for a good time.
One day while walking around the mall he stumbles across a display for a new operating system that has artificial intelligence to act like human being with real feelings and emotions. He purchases it and installs the female version on his computer, voiced by Scarlett Johansson, who names herself Samantha. Over the next few days the two begin to go through Theodore’s life which leads them to form a bond and become really close. She pushes him to be more social, to date again to cheer himself up, and put his divorce behind him.
He goes on one date that ends in disaster because of his awkward interpersonal skills and the fact he is falling in love Samantha. Shortly after Theo and Samantha begin to date and even though she is just a computer, they begin to experience life togther through the lense on his camera phone. They have sex even though she doesn’t have a body form, which leads to Samantha to arrange a surrogate female to show up to Theodore’s house on her behalf. He is so in love with Samantha that this one opportunity to experience human contact again fails when rejects Isabella (Portia Doubleday) because she is not what he invisions Samantha to be.
Over time their relationship blossoms, as much as a human and computer relationship can, before Samantha begins to meet other OS people and cuts back her time with Theodore. He has fallen head over heels in love and doesn’t know how to handle Samantha not being around as much. He begins to question her and her actions which become more erratic as the weeks go on before she admits to be in contact with 600 other humans and OS systems. This news turns out to be a crushing blow to Theodore because of how attached he is to their relationship. He begins to sense that their relationship is coming to an end and just like his marriage, he must be prepared to be alone all over again.
my thoughts: I will be straight up honest and apologize to anyone I am going to offend, but this movie sucked. I was not engaged in this story at all and found it so unrealistic that I would dread living in the future where people are dating computers. Maybe I missed the whole point here or just don’t like this kind of story, because I don’t understand how this film is getting 8+ star ratings from many reviewers and websites. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked Joanquin Phoenix as Theodore, he played his part perfectly as the lonely guy who is afraid to live but Samantha’s help comes out of his shell to experience life to the fullest. Most people would line up for days to buy a operating system that was voiced by Johansson but what she ends up putting Theodore through at the end wouldn’t be worth it. I felt really bad for him but was not brought to tears as the events begin to unfold. The worst part of the this movie is not their unrealisitic relationship or how creepy their sex life is, but the fact the movie just ends. The build up got me thinking something terrible was going to happen when it just ends. I didn’t feel any closure to the story or characters because I want to know what happened next. The director Spike Jonze is praised for such an amazing story, but come on, I deserved a better ending then that.
I personally wouldn’t recommend this movie to anyone, espically since my girlfriend who really wanted to see this, fell asleep because it was nothing like what we expected.
my star rating: 3 out 10
photo courtesy of http://www.imdb.com
Ten Stars or Less 
Good review Ryan. Can’t say I whole heartedly agree with you, but hey, it’s definitely for some out there, and it for others, it isn’t. Case closed.
Thanks Dan. I kept saying to myself how on earth can this be a 9.5, I was seriously waiting for it to the end like half way through. At the end of the day though, the greatest thing about movies is you either love them or hate them!
Nice review. I would still like to watch it but the premise does remind me of an episode of The Big Bang Theory!
Wow. You may be the only one that has not fully embraced this movie, and I commend you for it. Not everything has to be loved by everyone and I can respect why you did not like this. For me it wasn’t just about a lonely guy dating his computer. We see that he can get girls and get girls to want to sleep with him, but with Samantha it’s different. He can’t see her so he can’t have any prejudgements about her. What he falls in love with is just her personality. Is his relationship with her any different then a person who has a long distance relationship with someone over the net.
Thanks for the comment! Yes it is exactly like a long distance relationship but at least there is a face on the other end of the line unlike this movie, where there is no image or physical appearance to see. Also didn’t he fall in love with a program that was built for him to specifically to do so? The computer asked him like three questions and created something that was tailored to his personality, so he was really being set up to fail. I can’t remember exactly I thought heading into it but I remember being extremely disappointed when it was over. Glad it didn’t win Best Picture.