A new film by Spike Jonze is always worth paying attention to, and his latest effort, Her, is no exception. After all, this is the first full-length movie that he's both written and directed; it focuses on how relationships work in the digital age in a way that steps outside the familiar "technology makes us more removed from true experiences" narrative. Unfortunately, from the looks of the trailer released yesterday, what Her replaces that familiar narrative with is arguably more problematic.

Let's skip past the awkward creepiness of Scarlet Johannson's computer voice teasing (not quite) phone sex with Joaquin Phoenix's Theodore for a second, and just think about what this movie seems to be about: a man who, having failed in his last relationship with a real woman, finds true love with an artificial intelligence created his own tastes and personality tests.

But, that's okay, right? After all, "she" makes jokes and asks him the difficult questions ("How do you share your life with somebody?"), so it's not like she's a completely submissive presence in his life. (Well, aside from the whole "she was literally created to serve his needs" thing, of course.) It's the next generation of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, except that while most characters of that ilk require some sort of backstory to explain why they help sensitive leading man get in touch with himself and his emotions, a digital entity doesn't even need that; this time, she really does exist to make his life better.

Watching the trailer, it's even tempting to consider Her a parody of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl genre. Certainly, all of the cliches are present from the concerned and slightly-nerdy-looking male lead to the meaningless faux-deep emotional platitudes – "There's something that feels so good about sharing your life with somebody" – intercut with scenes of adults participating in childlike pursuits (Running with sparklers! Spinning in circles and laughing!) set against music by Aphex Twin and Arcade Fire, because of course.

If it is a parody, however, it's almost too good. There's no signifier, in the trailer at least, that this is anything other than a movie that celebrates its central affair and applauds Theodore's inability to deal with real people. ("You really deserve that," Amy Adams–as artfully disheveled as Phoenix is carefully unkempt–tells him, when he says that he's happy.) Based on what we see in the trailer, Her could be an Electric Dreams for the 21st Century–albeit it one where the human love story doesn't win out in the end.