“What will happen to me if I fail your test? Do you think I might be switched off?” asks the lovely and stone-serious android Ava. Her examiner Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), startled by her comment, need not look any further in answering his own question of whether Ava possesses a self-awareness, and perhaps, a consciousness. To the delight of the viewer, the apparent answer to Caleb’s question spawns a deeper level of intriguing puzzlement . What are Ava’s intentions and motives beyond self-preservation?
The forceful catalyst for Caleb’s search for truth is his ubiquitous (through surveillance) boss and mentor, Nathan. Director Alex Garland’s excellent screenplay teases with the additional dilemma of whether Nathan is actually an objective scientist intent on discovery or a genius gone mad or a little bit of both.
Oscar Isaac, in a flat-out fabulous performance, plays Nathan with an edgy, jaded charisma. Nathan always seems a step or two ahead of Caleb. From the outset, he does not appear to be playing this experiment by the book. The hard-drinking, self-assured Nathan is clearly intent on giving Caleb a maze of sorts to figure out. The puzzle at hand will also include Nathan as more than a dispassionate observer. Yet figuring him out is a relatively easy for Caleb next to figuring out Ava. Her stark advances contain an eerie ambivalence. Alicia Vikander, trained as a ballet dancer, brings a stunning screen presence as Ava. She’s an actress to definitely keep an eye on.
Ex Machina is a thinker’s paradise next to most films on the subject of artificial intelligence. Screenwriter and novelist Garland, in his first film directing, presents an amazing visual style and a patient, deliberate sense of pace. The film’s impactful twists are arrived at organically, with a heavy dose of plausibility.
Ex Machina never loses its footing in favoring the cerebral over the sensational. In many ways an anti-action film, it takes its time presenting its case for the questions at hand. Image by image it nails its commentary yet adroitly avoids sounding too academic. With a first film this good, Garland stakes out a place in imaginative cinema that should keep stimulating for a long time.