The Haunted Hard Drive

Who among us has thought of boinking their computer's operating system? I know, none of us, but Joaquin Phoenix thinks about it in 2013's Her. It's not really a movie about the potential of A.I. romance so much as it is a supernatural romance in sci-fi clothing. But it's a relaxing and kind of sweet film.

It's included on a new playlist on The Criterion Channel for movies about A.I. but those looking to this film to tackle some of the emerging issues surrounding the topic will be disappointed.

We find ourselves in an unspecified point in the future where humanity has kind of met the computers halfway--director Spike Jonze presents a sterile city with sterile interiors that look like department store displays.

Everyone wears solid colours; button down collared shirts with with pale trousers and cardigans. The operating system seamlessly blends into every aspect of Theodore's (Phoenix) life pleasantly, in the way Apple commercials assure us is normal and pleasant.

The film avoids addressing any potential issues in the fact that Theodore bought and owns the OS he eventually falls in love with, a girlfriend who also does the work of a personal assistant. The A.I., called Samantha, is voiced by Scarlett Johansson and the movie really makes you realise, as beautiful as Johansson is, her voice on its own is also incredibly sexy. So it's not hard for me to believe their "phone sex" scene.

Like in ghost romance movies, Samantha goes through a stage of wanting a physical body to dwell with the living and then goes through a stage of gradually moving on to a higher plane. In this case, it's implied A.I.s move so far beyond physical and human reality that they disappear into some superior realm we can't even imagine. So essentially heaven.

The articles I've read about A.I. and ChatGPT sessions I've seen so far haven't impressed me that they have anything like true sentience as we know it. But it's hard for screenwriters to imagine truly non-human intelligence--it's certainly hard for me. I do believe a sort of intensely complex intelligence will emerge that will become a danger to humanity. But it's not going to be something we can empathise with or that will be capable of empathising with us. As much as we might want Samantha or Data or Hatsune Miku, I think we're more likely to get HAL, Skynet, and/or Cybermen.

Her is available on The Criterion Channel.

Rabbit Courage

Not all the things we liked as kids look so good when we're older, whether it's He-Man or Good Luck Trolls or, like the protagonist of 2019's Jojo Rabbit, Adolf Hitler. True, being a Nazi fanboy has direr connotations than being an avid Pog collector, but filmmaker Taika Waititi wisely sees the same rules of youthful foolishness likely applied. Employing a tone frequently reminiscent of Wes Anderson, Waititi made a good comedy about the innocent absurdity that can exist concurrently with malicious horror.

As Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamazov, "As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naïve and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too." As young Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) takes to Hitler Youth training with gusto, he meets silly adult Nazis played by Sam Rockwell, Alfie Allen, and Rebel Wilson. Wilson's character, Fraulein Rahm, never breaks stride in her devotion to the cause, even later in the film when she's packing kids off with explosives. She maintains the manner of a secretary whose mind is never entirely on her boring job yet her devotion to the concept is beyond question.

The film's most interesting character is Sam Rockwell's Captain Klenzendorf whose fervour for the National Socialist Party has worn out with age and experience along with assorted other kinds of youthful idealism and slavishness. He designs his own uniform at one point with ridiculous crimson fringe and a plumed helmet that doesn't so much proclaim his loyalties as much as it says, "Fuck this noise, I'm doing what I want."

Jojo's mother, played by an especially sharp and charming Scarlett Johansson, is a more straight forward, secret anti-Nazi, and Jojo discovers one day a Jewish girl his mother's been hiding in the wall. Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) threatens and mocks the boy and he, of course, is horrified by her. But like most kids who spend a lot of time together on the playground, no taunts or factionalism can quite outlast the influence of shared experience and hormones.

Waititi himself plays Jojo's imaginary friend in the film, a version of Adolf Hitler, whose childlike recriminations and articulations of moral support seem much more like a kid's construct than the bloody dictator, though there's understandably some overlap between the two. Waititi's performance is very funny.

It's a very sweet film that says some rather dangerously innocent and insightful things about human nature.

Carnival of Divorce Lawyers

When two shallow, self-absorbed people decide to get divorced they find a landscape of crooked lawyers in L.A. These lawyers prove adept at driving a further wedge between them in 2019's Marriage Story. Strong performances from Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson come with a few good laughs but with too many broad moments for the subtle issues writer/director Noel Baumbach sets out to tackle. It's like if a Woody Allen or Ingmar Bermgan movie were remade by George Costanza.

The movie begins with two montages with voiceover narratives. First with Charlie (Driver) narrating a montage about his wife, Natalie (Johansson), then with one by her about him. Both have nothing but lovely things to say about each other, each for some reason praising the other for adopting opposite gender roles or behaviour. Natalie talks about how Charlie loves caring for their son and always cries at movies and Charlie talks about how Natalie opens pickle jars for him because she's much stronger. Which is pretty hard to buy after seeing Driver shirtless in Last Jedi and even harder to buy after he punches a hole in a wall in this movie.

It turns out these are essays the two have written about each other as part of marriage counselling but they end up not sharing with each other because Natalie isn't feeling up to it. Is the gender roles thing meant to be cause for their breakup? We actually don't get much detail on what drove them apart initially but the two start to distrust each other more and more once lawyers start manipulating them.

Baumbach casts some powerhouse supporting players in the lawyer roles--Natalie gets a shark played by Laura Dern and Charlie first hires Alan Alda and then Ray Liotta. Alda's pretty good as a mild mannered old hand but Dern and Liotta are so cartoonishly aggressive it seems bizarre that Charlie or Natalie listen to them. But then, Charlie is a theatre director whose cold and hipstery production of Elektra we get a glimpse of. Maybe I can believe he's that big of a sap.

Driver and Johansson give their all in some dialogue that goes from tense to heated and the energy between the actors is captivating but I struggle to remember anything they actually said. It's telling that the climax of the film is Driver in an effective piece of slapstick, Baumbach apparently wise enough to realise the screenplay didn't provide enough satisfying material. Johansson wears a cool David Bowie Halloween costume in another scene so there are lots of nice little things but I'm not sure it makes the whole movie worth watching. Your mileage may vary.

Marriage Story is available on Netflix.