"Music video director" has long since ceased being the most accurate description for Spike Jonze, but the release today of his new film Her looks to cement the fact that many people will know him primarily as an acclaimed film director.
Just look at the reviews:
"One of the best films in years... The writer-director Spike Jonze gets beautifully lost in Her." - David Adelstein (New York)
"At once a brilliant conceptual gag and a deeply sincere romance... This is a movie you want to reach out and caress, about a man who, like everyone else around him in this near future, has retreated from other people into a machine world." - Manohla Dargis (NY Times)
"Visionary and traditional, wispy and soulful, tender and cool... A film that stands apart from anything else on the horizon in many ways, it will generate an ardent following" - Todd McCarthy (Hollywood Reporter)
"Her is a look at the pleasures and perils of new technology that's a smart entertainment and a subtle warning, a love story and a horror show. Acerbic, emotional, provocative, it's a risky high dive off the big board with a plot that sounds like a gimmick but ends up haunting, odd and a bit wonderful." - Kenneth Turan (LA Times)
Here's hoping Spike Jonze still comes back to visit us with a music video every now and then, but it seems like Her is the massive breakthrough he's been building toward since his first film, 1999's Being John Malkovich.
