Film / Reviews
Ex Machina
Ex Machina (15)
UK/USA 108 mins Dir Alex Garland Starring: Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, Alicia Vikander, Chelsea Li, Evie Wray, Sonoya Mizuno
The cinematic equivalent of a natural spring, constantly bubbling over and bringing new ideas to the surface, Ex Machina marks a hugely impressive step forward in writer/director Alex Garland’s filmography.
The 28 Days Later/Sunshine scribe makes his directorial debut with this elegant sci-fi mood piece, in which young, naïve computer programmer Caleb (Gleeson) is invited to the remote mountain retreat of his CEO, Nathan (Isaac), having won an undisclosed prize in a competition.
Nathan’s glass-partitioned hideaway lies in direct opposition to the breathtaking mountain vistas that surround it, the first of many clever ways in which Garland subtly establishes the film’s themes of digital alienation versus the sense of the natural. Caleb soon discovers that the reason for his summons is to take part in the Turing Test: in other words, testing the perceived humanity of Nathan’s latest robotic creation Ava (Vikander).
Both alien yet palpably human, with a see-through body and an empathetic face, Ava is the movie’s trump card, Vikander transforming the character from a group of wires into a compelling enigma that powers the film’s unsettling themes. Crisply visualised, Garland’s cautionary tale is eerily hardwired into the anxieties of our age, exposing the sense of personal detachment as brought on by the advances in technology.
More alarmingly, the film breaks humanity down to its core components, questioning whether it’s the organic fleshy bit or a more intangible sense of soul that distinguishes us from the machines on which we increasingly rely. It isn’t for nothing that we find Ava an increasingly more sympathetic presence than her cold and contradictory creator, Nathan. Bolstered by three terrific lead performances, it’s provocative and gripping viewing.
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