Rebecca Hiscott is a graduate student at NYU and a features writer for Mashable.
I’m still marveling at ‘Him and Her’ by Mark Harris from the Oct. 14 issue of New York magazine. The piece is both a nuanced profile of director Spike Jonze — despite Joaquin Phoenix’s stony-faced cameo on the cover — and an eye into the making of Her, the quasi-sci-fi movie that aspires to be ‘a cautionary meditation on romance and technology’ and ‘a subtle exploration of the weirdness, delusiveness, and one-sidedness of love.’ The narrative follows Jonze through the process of writing, shooting and editing the film, and his subsequent efforts to correct a cinematic gamble that hasn’t paid off. Harris’s lush prose mimics Jonze’s aesthetic as a filmmaker, which the author describes as ‘disarmingly sincere, and melancholy in surprising places”; the article also has an evocative opening scene that perfectly captures the spirit of the film and its enigmatic director.
***
We need your help to get to 5,000 Longreads Members.
Get the Longreads Weekly Email