Her

Funny, romantic, touching and thought-provoking, this terrific film from writer/director Spike Jonze inhabits pretty much the same oddball arena of his Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. In a near-future world of holographic video games and voice-activated everything, Joaquin Phoenix (himself no stranger to offbeat cinema) plays a morose and lonely writer of personal letters for repressed clients. His life is turned upside down when he downloads a cutting-edge piece of operational computer software, the artificially intelligent OS1. It's intuitive, smart... and sexily voiced by Scarlett Johannson. Small wonder, then, that Phoenix is soon head-over-heels in love with "her". But can a disembodied voice truly compete in a world of physical attraction? And is a one-to-one relationship even possible in cyberspace? At two hours, Her is a little too long, but it ably demonstrates Jonze's talent for mature and magical film-making.