That doesn't mean it's a bad movie --- actually, it's a great movie. The cast does an amazing job, Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson knock it out of the freaking park.
It's the near future. Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) is a lovable dork who writes love letters for people who have difficulty expressing themselves. He's in the final stages of divorce from his wife (Rooney Mara; btw there's a lot of gentleman boner eye candy in this film). He divides his time between video games and internet porn.
OS One is released (that's right, an operating system). It's powered by futuristic AI that is, well, AI. The interface is all voice; his OS is played by Scarlett Johansson's voice. She names herself Samantha.
Samantha is funny, compassionate, and irreverent. It takes all of 10-20 minutes of screentime for her and Theodore to fall in love. They even have cybersex.
Theodore goes through various crises of confidence, which is understandable given that he is dating a piece of software, but eventually he decides to just roll with it.
It is really impossible to do justice to how pathetic Theodore is. Before he and Samantha are "together," he's set up with smoking but Wall-approaching alpha female Harvard CS grad Olivia Wilde. She gloms onto his cute beta adorableness (describing him as "a puppy dog," which he lamely tries to correct to "dragon"). Later they're making out, and she stops and says, "You're not just gonna fuck me and not call me like the other guys, right?"
Honestly anything he said at this point, if he'd owned it, would have been better. Literally, "Yeah, that was pretty much the plan," in the most brutal manner you can imagine, would have gone better.
Instead, he can barely muster something non-committal, and she says, "You're a really creepy dude."
The man is just scared of his own shadow. His ex-wife even berates him over it right after they sign their divorce papers---he mumbles something and doesn't finish it, and she jumps: "Say it! Am I really that scary (keep in mind we're talking about itty-bitty 5'3" Rooney Mara here)?"
Anyway.
At some point he has doubts (because again, he is dating a piece of software), and he refers to Samantha as "not a person." She disappears for a bit, and he decides the (non-)sex and companionship make overlooking her non-personhood worth it.
I won't spoil the ending, but let's just say: this movie is entirely consistent with TRP. 5/5 from your CS nerd friend Dropit.
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