Ex Machina

Director: Alex Garland
Screenplay: Alex Garland
Stars: Domhnall Gleeson (Caleb), Oscar Isaac (Nathan), Alicia Vikander (Ava), Sonoya Mizuno (Kyoko), Claire Selby (Lily), Symara A. Templeman (Jasmine), Gana Bayarsaikhan (Jade), Tiffany Pisani (Katya), Elina Alminas (Amber)
MPAA Rating: R
Year of Release: 2015
Country: U.K.
Ex Machina
Ex MachinaWith the exception of a few, wordless opening scenes, all of Alex Garland’s philosophical sci-fi drama Ex Machina takes place in a secluded house/research facility buried deep in the Alaskan wilderness. The juxtaposition of the stark, modernist structure of steel, concrete, and glass, the full extent of which is largely concealed underground, and the daunting, seemingly untamed wilderness around it, constitutes the first of the film’s many perplexing, fascinating contradictions, virtually all of which stick with you long after the film is over. Everything about Ex Machina, from its setting, to its characters, to its tone, posits a conundrum, and Garland, who was a novelist before he turned to screenwriting and is now making his directorial debut, treats the twisty, cagey material with a cool, some might say Kubrickian, detachment.

We are introduced to the protagonist, a nebbish computer programmer named Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) who works for a massive international corporation called Bluebook (imagine Apple and Google and Facebook all combined into one corporate entity). In the opening scene he discovers that he has won some kind of in-house lottery, the prize for which is a week spent with Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac), the company’s founding genius and CEO who lives in isolation in the aforementioned Alaskan research facility. The exact purpose of Caleb’s week-long stint in Nathan’s intellectual sanctuary is only gradually revealed to him: He is to be the control in an extended Turing Test to determine whether Nathan’s latest iteration of artificial intelligence can pass for human. As it turns out, Nathan has not just created a computer intelligence, but also a robotic body in which to house it that is almost indistinguishable from the truly human. The robot, named Ava (Alicia Vikander), is lithe and pretty and seemingly childlike in her simplicity, although her interactions with Caleb (they are separated by a glass wall) begin to gradually reveal depths of feeling and thought that belie her surface innocence.

And thus we have the first and most perplexing contradiction, the one that drives the film’s philosophical heart: At one point must we (and Caleb and Nathan) treat Ava as functionally human? That is, if she thinks and feels and responds and views herself as human, does she deserve the same moral and ethical considerations that we would extend to our fellow human beings? The trick of the test is that Caleb knows that Ava isn’t “real” in the sense that he is (a traditional Turing Test involves interacting with a computer intelligence that is physically unseen), so will he come to think of her as human even though he knows intellectually that she is mechanical? Garland and his production design team have found a beautifully provocative means of visualizing this enigma by making Ava look remarkably human in her face, but her limbs, abdomen, and the back of her head are exposed, covered only with a fine metallic mesh that reveals the circuitry and mechanics within. It is an uncanny sight at first, but we grow strangely used to it, which makes it all the more compelling when she dons a wig and clothes and becomes, visually at least, fully human, all evidence of her mechanical existence being hid.

However, Ava is not the only confounding character in the film. Her creator, Nathan, is as fascinating as she is, if for entirely different reasons. Oscar Isaac, who previously made an impact in Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) and J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year (2014), spins a hypnotic web around Caleb and us (Caleb acts as the audience surrogate, learning things as we do and grappling with the moral implications the film lays at our feet). Nathan is simultaneously ingratiating and off-putting, understanding and obtuse, honest and abusive. He mistreats his body and mind with excessive alcohol consumption, but spends most of his days vigorously exercising. He is clearly brilliant, but his intelligence is dangerous—threatening, you might say—because it clearly lacks any kind of moral dimension. He has no qualms about anything, and he designs and builds as he pleases without thought for ethical considerations. When Caleb rightfully asks him why he gave Ava a sexual dimension, his response is both crude and telling: because sexuality is “fun.” Nathan is the modern equivalent of Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein, except he lacks the good doctor’s moral conflict. In this regard, he is not particularly deep as a character because he has no internal struggle, but Isaac is so good at mixing smarm and charm and deadpan brilliance that Nathan casts a spell anyway; it’s as if he took all the bad qualities that made Llewyn David such a blandly off-putting character and spins them into something deviously captivating.

Similarly, Caleb appears to lack conflict, as well, but primarily because he is at the opposite end of the moral spectrum from Nathan. Slightly goofy, socially awkward, smart but not brilliant, but eternally decent, he is a seemingly flimsy foil and counterpart, which is one of Garland’s most compelling narrative strokes. We think we have Caleb figured out, even when he starts to turn on Nathan as his relationship with Ava grows, but like Caleb we are operating with only partial information, much of which is not revealed until the third act. And even then, when we think we know what’s happening, we are struck with the revelation of more—not just previously hidden information, but layers of feeling and thought that were, perhaps, right in front of our eyes the whole time. As a triangle, Caleb, Nathan, and Ava seem overly determined—programmatic, even—but Ex Machina works because it gradually shifts the terms of the narrartive and thematic structure, forcing us to reevaluate what we thought we knew and seriously question the fundamental essence of humanity. Not to give too much away, but Garland’s ultimate statement about what it means to be human is not a pretty one. In the end, what makes us human is our innate selfishness.

As a film about the logical ends of human-created artificial intelligence, Ex Machina is an intriguing achievement, not to mention beautiful in an austere, clinical kind of way (the rigorously controlled cinematography is by Rob Hardy). It mixes a number of different tones, and in a few of its most harrowing moments it dips deep into the wells of horror, particularly when Caleb begins to question his own human existence. The film’s only real flaw is that it works on your head, but not so much on your heart, which is why it is not nearly as affecting as Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)—which, not incidentally, was a Stanley Kubrick production that Spielberg inherited after Kubrick passed away. At times it feels like Garland is playing with his characters (and, by proxy, us) the way a researcher might play with rats in a maze, which keeps us at a slight remove. The film leaves us thinking, but not necessarily feeling beyond the sting of its cruel ironies.

Copyright ©2015 James Kendrick

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All images copyright © Universal Pictures

Overall Rating: (3.5)




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