Do androids dream of electric sheep? The debut trailer for director Spike Jonze’s next film, Her, has just been released. In this 21st century love story, Jonze postulates what the relationship between a man and a computer might be like. Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore: an anti-social, lonely soul who buys an operating system capable of advanced artificial intelligence.
Spike is well known as a buzzworthy oddball, from directing critically acclaimed and surreal Being John Malkovich (1999), creating the Jackass (2000) series, adapting Where the Wild Things Are (2009), to directing the music video for Daft Punk’s Da Funk (1997), among numerous other projects. The film has a strong cast featuring Joaquin, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, and Scarlett Johansson as Samantha, the faceless artificial “woman”. Arcade Fire is also set to score the film, having worked with Jonze previously on multiple occasions.
I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I already smell an Oscar nomination for Joaquin Phoenix on this one. He’s truly an amazing actor, previously nominated for three Academy awards, and notable for foisting the public into thinking he had gone off the deep end for his 2010 mockumentary I’m Still Here.
Check out the trailer for Her right below:
Spike Jonze brings an interesting idea to light. What happens when computers become so advanced that they can mimic human interactions? (Hope you caught my reference to Blade Runner earlier.) Dealing with the morality of killing androids that are self-aware and all. When does something become human to us? Will it ever be socially acceptable to have a relationship with something “artificial”? Someday these questions won’t just be science fiction.
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