Movie Review: ‘Ex Machina’

“Ex Machina”

Directed by Alex Garland

Universal Pictures

4.0 paws

Even before its premiere in the South by Southwest film festival, sci-fi thriller “Ex Machina” picked up some early attention. Tinder users in Austin, Texas for the weekend found themselves swiping right to Ava, a beautiful woman who proved to be a bot, a virtual femme fatale providing a teaser for her film.

But aside from an overzealous marketing campaign, “Ex Machina” doesn’t aspire for anything intellectually groundbreaking, serving instead as a stylistically smart but familiar venture into the unfamiliar.

The film follows Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), a young, inspired programmer who works at BlueBook, Google’s fictional clone. It begins as Caleb wins a company-wide lottery to spend a week with BlueBook’s reclusive billionaire CEO Nathan (Oscar Isaac) on his remote island estate.

Upon his arrival, Caleb is greeted by a hungover Nathan, a refreshing step away from eccentric genius billionaires of Hollywood past. Sporting a workout tank and a beer in one hand, Nathan is a stereotypical dude, a foil to the geeky, idealistic Caleb. Something is clearly off in the house, but it’s hard to get a gauge for Nathan, as his psyche is kept carefully guarded behind a brutish outward manner.

Nathan explains that the mansion isn’t just his home, but also his research laboratory and reveals the true purpose of Caleb’s invitation. Caleb is to serve as the human component in a Turing test, a measure of whether a machine’s artificial intelligence is truly indistinguishable from human intelligence.

The subject of the test is Ava (Alicia Vikander), a feminine robot created as the best A.I. on the planet. Atop her sleek metallic body frame, Ava is composed of human hands and a delicate, curious face, which drawing from BlueBook’s enormous data reservoir, exhibits the full gamut of human expression.

In Ava lies the film’s masterstroke. She’s creepy but enchanting, as her appearance is distinctly robotic, with just enough of the human touch to evoke an empathy for her. And she’s not just human – she’s feminine, adding a sexual dimension to the relationships in play.

Drawing from Garland’s writing prowess, “Ex Machina” strides on the dynamic relationship between Caleb, Ava and Nathan. Each day, Caleb conducts an interview with Ava to test the boundaries of her intellect that soon turn into conversations that add new layers of complexity, making for a fast-paced story.

As their interview sessions progress, so does Caleb and Ava’s relationship. During brief power outages, when the pair is freed from Nathan’s watchful eye, Ava opens up to Caleb some chaotic truths about her existence, sucking Caleb further into the bizarre experiment. He’s faced with the inevitable question: what will happen to Ava after Caleb’s test?

The premise of “Ex Machina” is far-fetched, but the questions it asks aren’t. Brilliantly symbolized through a Jackson Pollock painting, Nathan comments that it’s not the rational response, but rather the non-deliberate instinct that marks true human intelligence. But to what degree is human intelligence preprogrammed? Also, in a world where data and information are valued above all else, what kind of power does a data giant like Google hold?

Although the film probes these deeper questions, Garland does so with a delicate touch. With the same innocence as Ava, the film merely asks quietly, tiptoeing the line between entertainment and philosophical provocations, making for a less strenuous movie experience than its louder, heavier sci-fi siblings. It’s thought-provoking but not overly brainy, keeping itself open to a broad range of viewers.

At its best, “Ex Machina” is a cerebral movie that provides a thrilling exploration into the what-ifs of programming artificial intelligence, and one possibility for the most human form of it. But, even at its worst, it’s still a pretty good Frankenstein-esque tale about a mad scientist and his creation, and the man who, to his misfortune, finds himself between the two.

– Aalhad Patankar