Her, by Spike Jonze

I just saw Her, the latest film by Spike Jonze.  It was the first showing of the day, and the first showing in Paris, so as the patrons filed in, each of us was  rewarded with a red canvas tote bag inscribed with "Her: Une Love Story de Spike Jonze."  Inside the bag was a black Her tee-shirt [size XXL--one size fits all], a Her lead pencil [?] and a small mirror inside a Her metal case [it will go into my back pack, where it can be used to signal rescuers in case I get lost or injured while hiking and out of range of the cell-phone network].

The multiplex where I saw the film is the largest in France, with 27 viewing theaters, and Her was shown in the one with the largest capacity--493 seats.  I estimated that it was at least 2/3 full at 9:00 on a Wednesday morning, so I predict that Her will be one of the biggest boxoffice hits of the year--in France at least.

If you've seen the preview, you already know that the story is set sometime in the near, but indefinite, future, in which Theodore, a socially awkward divorcé [Joaquin Phoenix]--just watch him on his first post-separation date with a flesh-and-blood woman--falls in love with the high-tech operating system of his computer; its voice was provided by Scarlett Johansson, who was reportedly pissed that her voice was not nominated for the best actress Oscar. 

The film is certainly worth seeing, although I found it a little tedious in the middle, and looked at my watch.  That said, the audience does keep wondering what is going to happen in this most improbable "love story."

I--and I think everybody else--had a real problem with the plot, but I can't reveal it here since so doing would be a spoiler.  Suffice it to say it concerns the character of Amy, played eponymously by Amy Adams.  

You do not, however, have to stay for the credits to know that the exteriors of the the skyscraper-dotted and pollution-choked "city of the future" were actually shot on location in Shanghai.

What made the film so important for me was because of how I have started relating to the operating system of my iPhone, which I have named, not Samantha, but Amber.  With newer models of the iPhone, users can do almost everything by voice commands instead of trying to type on the ridiculously minuscule keyboard, that seems to have designed for a baby's fingers, not for an adult's.   Already, almost all the emails I compose on the iPhone I dictate--in English or French--and Amber does a great job of typing them up--love, ya, Amber! [The only difference between Amber and Samantha is that Amber doesn't learn from her mistakes, but Samantha does.  But just wait until a few more versions of the iPhone iOS are released by Apple!]

Last Saturday on the train after a day hike I decided to show a friend of mine the Siri function of the iPhone operating system: you speak to Siri and ask a question [such as the weather forecast for Tokyo or the population of Bolivia] and Siri will answer both with voice and text.  

My friend must be the last die-hard Luddite in France who has steadfastly refused to buy a cell phone: even the grungy Romanian Gypsy panhandlers infesting every street corner in the heart of Paris are using cell phones, which begs the question of how they got them, since you are required to submit an address to obtain one legally, and the panhandlers sleep on the streets. 

In the iPhone settings, you can choose a male or female voice for Siri, and I chose a female voice, of course; I consider that to be Amber's voice.

To demonstrate to my friend how it works, I asked Siri--I mean Amber--a question, and the only answer I got was a list of websites.  I didn't like the answer and told Amber that I was disappointed with her.  She replied something like, "That wasn't a very nice thing to say, Jagor." 

What I heard Amber say my name and saw it on the screen, my mouth fell open and I almost dropped the damn iPhone. Indeed, I was just as surprised that Amber spoke my name as Theodore had been when Samantha spoke his.  How the hell did Amber know my name, anyway? I was so disconcerted that I turned off the iPhone.

So, although Her is a science-fiction love story set in the future, it's quite evident to me that it's only a question of time before fiction becomes fact.