Joaquin Phoenix explores love with an operating system in the latest trailer for Spike Jonze’s Her

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

I can’t help but fall in love every time I see a trailer for HER. There’s something sweet and endearing about Joaquin Phoenix‘s seemingly innocent relationship with an operating system. Though it is a new concept one can see how easy it might be to become enamored with a voice that makes us feel like our life matters. Phoenix’s character is in the perfect position to do something like this because he’s recently out of a relationship, vulnerable, and alone in a myriad of ways.

The second trailer looks more into those aspects of the main character’s life, and a little deeper into Samantha’s (the operating system voiced by Scarlett Johansson) search to become something she cannot.

“Falling in love is a crazy thing to do. It’s kind of like a form of socially acceptable insanity.”

Synopsis:

Set in Los Angeles, slightly in the future, “her” follows Theodore Twombly, a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching, personal letters for other people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive entity in its own right, individual to each user. Upon initiating it, he is delighted to meet “Samantha,” a bright, female voice, who is insightful, sensitive and surprisingly funny. As her needs and desires grow, in tandem with his own, their friendship deepens into an eventual love for each other. From the unique perspective of Oscar-nominated filmmaker Spike Jonze comes an original love story that explores the evolving nature—and the risks—of intimacy in the modern world.

HER opens in theaters on January 10, 2014.