As humanity falls ever deeper in love with our devices, science fiction continues to hold up a cautionary lens.
We’ve had an increasing amount of films dealing with the rising presence of artificial intelligence, with Her, Chappie and Avengers: Age of Ultron being the most recent. With Ex Machina, writer-director Alex Garland has given us a film that easily moves to the front of the line on the subject. A must for any list of the best films of the year.
Garland has written 28 Days Later, The Beach, Sunshine, Never Let Me Go and Dredd, among others. With Ex Machina, he moves to the director’s chair, and delivers a modestly budgeted, superbly realized and effective science fiction film that’s an instant classic – a film with a vision, driven by an airtight script, wondrous design and outstanding performances.
Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a programmer at a gigantic Googlesque corporation, who learns he’s won the lottery that will allow him to meet the company’s reclusive founder, tech genius Nathan (Oscar Isaac), to assist in his research (curiously, both actors are featured in Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens). Nathan is a fascinating character, a supercilious hipster who’ll be his employee’s buddy, drink beer with them, calling them “dude,” while diving into their brain like a surgeon, assessing, probing, manipulating. Isaac creates a tremendously naturalistic character, deliberately casual and arrogant, his ego and hubris fueling his disregard for boundaries and sense of entitlement. Caleb arrives at his remote automated home in the wilderness (stunning locations in Norway) seemingly alone with Oz, the great and dourful.
Nathan needs Caleb to undertake a Turing Test of his latest creation, Ava (Alicia Vikander) – an artificially intelligent android, made to resemble a striking young woman. Can Ava exhibit behavior that’s indistinguishable from a human? Caleb will interact with her, to evaluate her humanity. Nathan will scrutinize.
And let’s just leave it at that, shall we? Ex Machina’s a film you should just discover and be surprised by. The cast is small – giving the film a theatrical and contained feeling of claustrophobia among Nathan’s many sealed rooms. Garland restraint with budget and pacing is superb – $15 million and 108 minutes.
The cast is astonishing. Vikander is a wonder, playing a machine that’s playing a human – she deftly wraps layer over layer with superb control and enigmatic presence, while inhabiting truly amazing special effects (by Double Negative).
Garland is a phenomenal filmmaker who not only gives us an amazing visual experience, but who wants us to look at our notions of consciousness and self – and selfishness. If the example of humanity a being is exposed to is prone to taking what it wants – to exploit in order to satisfy – what lessons of ethics or efficiency will the still-developing being construe? Is intelligence what defines humanity? Ex Machina is one of the smartest and most involving science fiction films we’ve seen, and I can’t wait to see what Garland does next. A must-see.
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