‘Ex Machina’ is Genius
Alicia Vikander and Alex Garland work on set. Photo courtesy A24.
May 11, 2015
The star of Ex Machina is Ava, a too-lifelike robot with clear skin, displaying the whirring machines underneath.
The movie’s similar inner mechanisms are powerful and elevate an alluring shell to something profound.
In the first scene, Caleb (Gleeson), a coder at the world’s biggest search engine provider, wins a contest to spend a week at the house of the company’s CEO Nathan (Isaac), ostensibly to hang out with him the entire time. Upon his arrival, though, Caleb learns he’s wandered into the biggest scientific development in all of human history. Nathan thinks he’s created real artificial intelligence in the form of a robot named Ava (Vikander), and he needs Caleb to perform a Turing test on her.
As the week progresses, Caleb and Nathan’s bro becomes more complicated, made worse by Ava’s apparent AI, the presence of the mute Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno), and Nathan’s own alcoholism and abrasiveness.
Information around Ava’s situation and Nathan’s intentions begins to slip, forcing all of the three main characters test and deceive each other. The nature of the movie requires at least two viewings and a debate over Ava and that ending (that ending!).
Vikander carries herself with grace as Ava, emoting through movement in an understated but hugely important way. She’s the movie’s greatest asset. Gleeson and Isaac also deliver outstanding performances, spitting out lines dripping with malice and fake friendship.
The movie is much more successful than other recent AI follies (the formless Transcendence is one particularly heinous offender). Even Age of Ultron doesn’t approach AI with the gentle, meaningful touch of Ex Machina. Ava’s intentions are never too easy to see.
Tone is central to the power of the film. Director Alex Garland has a great sense of how to maintain his tone and when to break it. In one scene (arguably the best one) Nathan and Kyoko break into a choreographed disco dance routine. Seriously, people, out-of-nowhere dance scenes are a great idea for any production.
Ex Machina, under its sleek surface, ripples with huge ideas. Through Ava, the concept of gender is dissected, making the audience question her true nature. Ava a post-gender being, a robot designed so well that she can make the actual humans in her midst seem less real than her.
Ex Machina is destined to become a classic. It’s one of the few AI movies that doesn’t try too hard to seem smart; the film simply states its rules and tests our own perceptions. It’s a cinematic Rorschach blot, giving each viewer a unique and profound experience.
Some see the film as misogynistic, but its take on gender is deep and rings true. Ava isn’t female (she’s a cunning AI program), but she is somehow more lifelike than her human companions.
Ex Machina is a quiet, reserved, but deeply enthralling gender study in the form of a thriller. Ava will still be relevant years from now. So far, Ex Machina is the best movie of 2015.
