Scarlett Johansson: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

3. Samantha - Her (2013)

The prospect of a film about cyber-sex, loneliness, phone-sex and digital love should probably have set off a few red sirens when it was first announced, but last year's update on the concept that Electric Dreams had focused on almost 30 years before it (with considerably less finesse) was a lovingly crafted, non-judgemental comedy success. Inevitably, most of the plaudits went to Joaquin Phoenix for his performance as Theodore Twombly, but an introverted performance can only go so far without exceptional - and most importantly generous - supporting performances. In that regard, Phoenix profited hugely from the support of the likes of Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Chris Pratt and Olivia Wilde, but the most memorable performance of all came from Johansson as the voice of an irresistibly sexy operating system. Taking the inevitable moment when every man asked Siri a raunchy question to its utter extreme, Spike Jonze's comedy relied on a central, unseen performance that relied on convincing sexual magnetism and familiarity without the easy anchors of facial expressions and actual sexy body parts. And Johansson's unseen, but utterly tangible performance as Samantha is about as profoundly impressive as faceless performances get: she is seductive, flirtatious and clearly comes equipped with real emotions as well as emoticons, to the point where you really feel the exchange between the couple where Twombly seems oddly self-aware: "You seem like a person but you're just a voice in a computer," to which she responds, "I can understand how the limited perspective of an unartificial mind might perceive it that way." And such is the power of the performance. Johansson might not be there on screen, but she's more there than some actors who appear in every scene of inferior films.