Her

Spike Jonze has certainly etched himself as one of the more creative and influential directors of our time. Bread in the new school of self-taught auteurs, Jonze has created his own compelling brand of cinema, placing offbeat characters in realistically tender scenarios. But the true stamp of a Spike Jonze film is his touches of magical realism that elevate his works beyond bizarre pieces and force his audience to constantly engage with his films.   

It is this ability to navigate and bend genres that allowed Jonze to draw such artistry and poignancy out of a premise as strange that in Her. It’s what can described as a Redditor’s fan fiction, Her depicts the lonesome Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix The Master, Walk the Line) and his budding relationship with his artificially intelligent OS Samantha (Scarlett Johansson, The Avengers, Captain America: Winter Soldier).  

In the hands of a lesser writer or director, the film could have easily been cheapened or become farcical. Jonze, however, maintains a steadfast hand over his film and script. From the warmth of the pink-kissed color palate to the wistful score featuring Karen O’s “Moon Song,” Jonze creates an atmosphere built on trust and vulnerability. Even as he moves his film into more emotional intensity, he never betrays his audience’s investment, and treats his material with severe yet sincere reliability.

The film is buoyed by strong performances by it’s two leads. Even though Johansson is only a voice, the chemistry between her and Phoenix is palpable. The two performances complement each other perfectly, with Phoenix’s touching physicality and Johansson’s melodic tenderness. Both are halves of a beautiful dissection into a relationship.

Their relationship is set against a delicate picture of the future. In both costume and aeshetic, the Her universe seems like a realistic extension of our modern technological framework. It’s the perfect balance between futuristic predictions and muted change that creates just the right feeling of normalcy for its tale.  

Her is a rare type of film with the unique quality of taking a step back from reality to take a closer look into it. We see ourselves in the best and worst of Theodore and Samantha, making us ponder and reconcile the choices we have made in interacting with others. That maybe the best solace doesn’t come from other people or gadgets, but somewhere in between. Someone like her.  

The Master

Paul Thomas Anderson is a master of cinema.  Watching his films, you can instantly tell he is a student of film, not a film student. Each of his films thus far (Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood) is constructed like a great novel; densely constructed with precision, complexity, and a severe sense of humanity.  The Master joins his already prolific canon masterworks. 

The film follows alcoholic Freddie Quell, a simply impeccable performance by Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line), struggling to find a way post World War Two service.  He drunkenly stumbles onto the boat of charismatic Lancaster Dodd (a beautifully nuanced Philip Seymour Hoffman (Copoyte, Doubt, Punch Drunk Love)), leader of philosophical movement The Cause.

We will say, The Master is not Anderson’s best work but that is more of a testament to his already impressive resume.  However on aesthetics alone, The Master reigns supreme in his canon.  Anderson uses a bold and vibrant palate of images ranging from Fordian wide angles, to Wellesian lighting, to Kubrickian set pieces.  His meticulously framed shots linger on screen, capturing both the psychotic and claustrophobic nature of the film.  Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood returns as composer and produces an even more polished score.  There Will Be Blood played in an operatic fashion, emphasizing obsession and decadence while The Master’s plays on a broader spectrum, with wistful melodia articulating biting nostalgia and violently blunt chords conveying mental fragility.        

And the performances of this movie are nothing short of superb. Phoenix brings intricacy to a wild and neanderthal drifter.  In his incredibly visceral performance, Phoenix sports a drunken slouch; displaying a begrudging patronization of being upright and conforming to societal norms.  His performance is  mirrored so eloquently in Hoffman’s focused calm, which sits precariously on the precipice of violent outbursts. Amy Adams (The Fighter, Doubt, The Muppets) delivers a ruthless and frightening performance as Dodd’s picturesque first lady. 

If the movie falters, it’s that its complexity is dense and confusing. Similar to the rest of Anderson’s work, this movie requires not shortness of contemplation and is far from easily digestible. Scenes and themes are seemingly disjointed and not resolved. But perhaps this is what resolves so nicely in Master:  The simple irresolution of two men at such extremes with each other that they are unable to even transform. Audiences are accustomed to likeable people who change themselves through the process of the film. Master refuses this; taking instead two irreconcilable personalities and showing the cracks in their foundations.  

There is no fluff in Anderson’s craft.  His intensely human themes of alienation, isolation, familial dysfunction, and spiritual queries are deconstructed and reconstructed in oddly familiar, yet novel ways.  Few auteurs have the audacity to tackle such meditative questions, and even fewer have the tact and skill to execute them in such a refined manner.  That is why we will say it again, Paul Thomas Anderson is a master of cinema.