HER - FILM REVIEW

 Release Date: 14th February 2014 (UK)

Age Certificate: 15

Running Time: 126 mins

Director: Spike Jonze

Writer: Spike Jonze

Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams and Scarlett Johansson

'Her' is one of the greatest futuristic films ever. Partly because it’s so scarily close in the future that it’s funny. Especially when you look at the story. 

A lonely writer develops an unlikely relationship with his newly purchased operating system that's designed to meet his every need. 

What this film really surprised me with was the level of involvement you get when watching it. From reading the synopsis you think to yourself, am I really going to believe this? It’s really weird when sitting down to watch it. You know it’s going to be good. It’s Spike Jonze! You’re just wondering how he's going to pull it off. But he does, with amazing success.

Joaquin Phoenix is a truly wonderful actor, I really started to appreciate his acting finesse in The Master, since then when I look back at his older films I can see that talent there. In his ever growing career his talent is only getting stronger. Scarlett Johansson is strangely brilliant. How can you create an amazing performance while using just your voice? However, I still think they should have used an unknown actress to voice it. The reason being, I had her face in my mind, and that isn’t the aim of the film. If it was a voice you hadn’t heard before, it would keep the mystery alive. Maybe that’s just me. 

Directing wise, this is one of Spike Jonze’s best, if not the best. He is a gifted film maker and if he carries on making films that are written as well as directed by him, it would be the start of something fantastic. 

The soundtrack by Arcade Fire is also top notch; you can’t go wrong with a bit of Arcade Fire. 

‘Her’ is astounding, visually, musically, and emotionally. By the way this film is shot and styled it makes me want to jump into the future. 

8.5/10

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Review

 

Release Date: 3rd October 2012

Age Certificate: 12A

Running Time: 102 mins

Director: Stephen Chbosky

Writers: Stephen Chbosky

Stars: Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Ezra Miller

Stephen Chbosky brings us The Perks of Being a Wallflower; he has written the book and directed the film, which is pretty amazing if you ask me. This means we get a great perspective of how the author wanted the book to look. The Perks of being a Wallflower is about a boy named Charlie who doesn't have many friends at school for the first few months; when I say he doesn't have many friends he in fact has none. This all changes when he meets a boy called Patrick in one of his classes played by Ezra Miller. Patrick then introduces his step sister, Sam, played by Emma Watson to Charlie and there bond stands out from the very start. The rest of the film is about the remaining time together in high school. The Perks of Being a Wallflower makes the viewer feek all of the right emotions; it’s funny, intelligent and sometimes even very sad.

These kind of films can often fall flat on their faces, the characters can be flat and the punch lines don’t even tickle your funny bone. I am glad to say that this is not the case. I have not read the well loved book which I keep on hearing about, so I am just reviewing it as a film. I also hadn't read any reviews before I sat down to watch this film and I had no idea what to expect from it. The characters blossomed on the screen and they did not feel dry at all, I felt every one of their emotions with them. Logan Lerman and Emma Watson’s performances were good in this film, but the stand out performance came from Ezra Miller, you’ll just have to watch the film to know what I am talking about.

Like I said earlier this film is also very clever, some of the twists and turns you encounter on the way are very surprising. This is a surprise in its self because every time a film tries to add a twist into its plot you can see it coming from a mile off. Also, it is written in a way that you can see the story happening to somebody of that age; it’s not a million miles away of what actually happens in school life. The dialogue in this film is also very fresh and the film just has a great sense of innocence and it’s like the author climbed into a fifteen year old brain and took their thoughts from them, it was perfectly done.

There’s a great line in this film said by Paul Rudd, “We accept the love with think we deserve.” This drives Charlie to get closer to Sam which I found a really interesting part in the film. Along the story line of the film it gets very emotional about Charlie’s earlier life. I’m going to leave it there because I don’t want to spoil the film for you.

The only downside of this film is the ending, I felt it was a bit sloppy and they felt they were running out of time. It was just a bit heavy handed. This was the only fault I found with the film.

So therefore, I’m going to give The Perks of Being a Wallflower:

8.0/10

Trailer: