'DON JON' vs 'HER' (2013)

REVIEW

By Kate Lilly

27/05/2014

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If you have any experience on Tinder, you’ve probably realised that mixing love and modern technology is a complicated business. Happily, the disturbing world of online dating is not the only way relationships and technology can intersect, as we see in two of last year’s films. 

 

In one corner, we have the story of a guy who loves the porn on his computer more than he loves sex with his girlfriend, Scarlett Johansson.  In the other, we have a man who falls in love with his computer – who is Scarlett Johansson.

 

I’m sorry, is your brain hurting?  Let me backtrack a little here.

 

Don Jon

 

In this film, we meet Jon – a hulking lothario who spends his nights trawling New Jersey clubs for perfect 10s, taking them home to his dark man-cave and then slipping out of bed to watch porn.  According to Jon, sex with beautiful women has its drawbacks.  For example, he has to wear a condom because “unlike porn, real pussy can kill you.” Most of all, Jon can only lose himself completely when he’s watching porn.  So he watches a lot. 

 

Don Jon is short, sharp and dripping with testosterone.  But in amongst the nudity, it brings us an intriguing exploration of pornography as a self-centred fantasy world, which simplifies human intimacy to a process of logging on and getting off.  The film draws a very interesting comparison between Jon’s addiction and his girlfriend’s obsession with romance movies. 

 

Subsisting on a steady-diet of vanity and fluffy love stories – Barbara is convinced that a real man does anything for the woman he loves, without necessarily receiving much in return. In the end, her fantasies are just as one-sided as Jon’s. 

 

 

On the downside, the film’s resolution feels deceptively simple.  Jon discovers he can lose himself in right kind of sex and undergoes a swift reformation, softening his macho, hair-gel hardened exterior.  Given some people would argue that porn addiction is an addiction like any other – that takes time and work to break – his transformation seems almost too easy. 

 

 

The story – 7/10

The look – 9/10

The music – 8/10

The message – 7/10

 

Overall rating: 8/10

 

 

Her

 

Her brings us hazy vision of the near future – where computers can learn human emotion and

high-waisted pants are very in for men.  In 2025, Theodore Twombly, an almost-divorce, makes his living by writing beautiful, personalised letters to other people’s loved ones.  Although Theodore spends his time writing about love, he’s lonely, so he purchases a new intelligent computer operating system (referred to as an OS).  Upon initialising he meets Samantha – his personalised OS, who can sort his emails at lightning speed and forge emotional connections with the people she interacts with.  Sweet, warm and disarmingly perceptive – Theodore starts to fall in love with the voice on his smart-phone. 

 

This film just won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.  Admittedly, ‘critical acclaim’ doesn’t always  translate to ‘watchable’ but in this case, Her does the job – pulling you into an intriguing world that is unsettling and entirely plausible at the same time. Scarlett Johansson does an excellent job portraying Samantha as an expressive and fully formed character, despite the fact that we only hear a voice.  As a result, Theodore isn’t just some oddball who falls in love with his computer.  You can understand why he’s falling in love and the depth of the bond he is creating. 

 

Her certainly has its moments. For example, there’s a bizarre sex scene between Theodore and Samantha after which Theodore tries to have the ‘I’m not ready to commit talk’ with his computer.  I guess the morning after is made all the more awkward when your sex-partner is the one de-cluttering your hard drive.

 

Ultimately the film makes that point that as much as Samantha sounds and feels like a person – she is not human.   As Theodore’s ex-wife accuses,  “you always wanted to have a wife without the challenges of actually dealing with anything real.” No matter how clever computers get, human love isn’t necessarily the same as man-made emotion. 

 

The story – 8/10

The look – 9/10

The music – 10/10

The message – 9/10

 

Overall rating: 9/10

 

 

Both films raise interesting questions, living in an age where human intimacy can be manufactured, where computers can answer your every question and your every need and it becomes increasingly easy to retreat into your own world.  

 

Ultimately, I found Theodore’s relationships in Her more unsettling than Jon’s compulsive porn-habit. While Jon’s isolates himself within his sex-life, Theodore only engages with his world, through Samantha.  He doesn’t need anyone else. Why deal with those complications when he has a person who comes when she is called, leaves when she’s switched off, can answer his every question and organise his whole life?  

 

Of course the biggest question remains: are rom-coms more dangerous than porn?