May DVDs: “Her” (3 stars); “Monuments Men” (3 1/2 stars)
Posted on May 1, 2014 by bob in DVD
Her (R) 
This quietly unsettling romantic dramedy might be more of a portent for the future than some would like to believe. It may presage the next level of virtual intimacy beyond whatever people are already doing with their laptops, tablets and phones. Joaquin Phoenix plays a lonely, nerdy guy who buys a very personal new operating system that gives him voice and text contact with a “partner” (voice of Scarlett Johannson) programmed to develop a unique personality suited to the customer derived from their interactions. Ironically, his job is writing letters for others who can’t adequately express themselves. This purchase aligns him with those clients who can’t, or won’t, handle all the risks and enigmas of flesh-and-blood relationships.
We get a light, sentimental account of how he bonds with “her”; initially as a guilty secret, but then as an 
open almost-couple spending time with others. It’s everything ship computer HAL hoped to achieve with astronaut Dave in 2001: A Space Odyssey. What seemed amusingly bizarre when that film opened in the late 1960s now comes across as an imminent option for the fragile and fearful among us. How far away can those applications be? How will we handle the temptations, or compete with the benefits a companion can offer who is perfectly synched with every user in all but one respect?
Versatile director Spike Jonze gives us a lyrical pace and setting for the course of his subject couple, showing how this sort of pairing might evolve in the context of the rest of one’s work and social life, with a few intriguing developments along the way. A key perspective posed by the script is that “the past is just a story we tell ourselves.” If so, other than reproduction, how much difference does it make in the long run if the love of one’s life is a person or a program?
Johannson’s voice keeps her end of the relationship surprisingly engaging for viewers, as well as the pleasures she/it provides the end user. Phoenix excels in making his guy relatable as an everyman, rather than a stereotypic loner…or even less-sympathetic creep.
This may not be much of a date movie, since excessive zeal for owning such a package by one would surely be interpreted as an insult or threat to the other half of the couple. Otherwise, the debate over just how isolated we may (or should) become in our progressively web-based existences can find plenty of talking points in this entertaining, yet cautionary, tale.
The Monuments Men (PG-13)
Does anyone have a richer, more enjoyable life than George Clooney? He’s not only thrived as an actor, but parlayed his success into directing and/or producing any project he sets his sights upon. Then he admirably uses that clout to tell exceptional, worthy stories, rather than settle for the easy money of blockbusters (Argo; Good Night, and Good Luck, for example). His eye for quality attracts other luminaries to pet projects like this – a fact-based account of a group of artists, too old or unfit for duty in WW II, who volunteered to enter the war zone to recover and preserve the overwhelming amount of artworks the Nazis had been plundering from all the countries they occupied. The tale is well told, with Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin (the star of The Artist), Cate Blanchett and others drawn to the fine script Clooney wrote with Grant Heslov and others. As director, Clooney generously shines the spotlight on all his cast, not just his handsome leading man of the same name.
The unlikely septet Clooney’s character assembled received a quick dose of Army boot camp, before deployment to Normandy a month after D-Day. Theirs was a low-priority mission as far as field officers were concerned, forcing them to improvise for transport and logistics. Besides the hassles with red tape, they were rushed to recapture works of cultural, historic or religious import before the Nazis got them out of reach; or even worse, destroyed them. They even had to move faster than the Russians, who were closing in from the East, and perceived as less likely to return any treasures they might find to the rightful owners. The screenplay deftly mixes comic relief, suspense and emotional high points with the serious subject of the adventure. It honors the real men and their mission by portraying them at a realistic human scale, rather than hyperbolizing this handful of architects and art scholars into a version of The Dirty Dozen. Bob Balaban ain’t going Rambo on nobody.
Expectations may well run low when a film with such a strong cast comes out in February, without the Oscar-qualifying ploy of December openings in Los Angeles and New York. This may not have contended for those honors, but it’s a highly satisfying telling of a wonderful story, and a tribute to all who helped to save more than five million pieces of art for posterity.
Mark Glass
Mark Glass is an officer and director of the St. Louis Film Critics Association.
