Human-all-too-human?

Ex Machina  by Alex Garland     ★★★★

Caleb (played by Domhnall Gleeson) is an intelligent guy. He works as a software programmer for Blue Book: the world's most popular Internet search engine. One day, Caleb wins a staff lottery. His prize is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet with Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac): the brilliant and wealthy CEO of the Google-like company, who designed his Blue Book-search engine when he was only 13. 

Arriving by helicopter on Nathan's secluded and vast estate, Caleb is invited inside Nathan's villa to see his hidden high-security laboratory, where the brainiac has completed a new, top secret invention. That invention is called Ava (played by Alicia Vikander): a womanlike robot with an advanced form of artificial intelligence. Ava's 'brain' is designed by Nathan on the basis of the essential cognitive, emotional and psychological workings of the human mind, which Nathan figured out by analyzing the archived search queries of the billions of users of his own worldwide Blue Book-search engine. According to Nathan, the database of his search engine isn't only a directory of what people think and feel, but also a blue print (or Blue Book) of how we think and feel. Therefore, Ava is not only able to 'think' and talk like a human, but also to smile, make jokes and flirt.

Caleb arrives in Nathan's abode.

At the request of Nathan, Caleb is willing to submit Ava for a week to the so-called Turing test: an experiment named after the British computer pioneer Alan Turing who invented it in 1949 and called it the imitation game. The Turing test is meant to determine whether a computing automaton, like Ava, is really (self-)conscious and can actually think and feel as a human, or whether she's only simulating these human qualities. Soon, however, Caleb begins to suspect that Nathan is hiding something. There's more to this. But what...?

Alicia Vikander as Ava (left) and Domhnall Gleeson as Caleb.

A Frankenstein's monster?

Ex Machina (2015) is a new, excellent sciencefiction mystery thriller, that makes us think twice about the implications of artificial intelligence. First time director Alex Garland, who's bestselling novel The Beach was brought to the screen in 2000 and who went on to write the screenplays of the sci-fi movies 28 Days Later (2002), Sunshine (2007) and Never Let Me Go (2010), wrote the screenplay of Ex Machina himself with a burning issue in mind. Earlier this year, scientist Stephen Hawking and billionaire engineer Elon Musk warned the public that the development of artificial intelligence does not only entail promising advantages, but also potential dangers. Intelligent robots would increase unemployment and could, in time, even escape man's control completely, like a Frankenstein's monster. In Ex Machina, Nathan acknowledges to Caleb that, some day, artificial intelligence will be far superior to human intelligence: "One day the AI's are gonna look back at us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa."

Oscar Isaac as Nathan (left) and Domhnall Gleeson as Caleb.

The risks of artificial intelligence have already been highlighted in brilliant sci-fi classics, such as:

- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Stanley Kubrick, which features the legendary rogue computer HAL 9000; 

- Alien (1979) by Ridley Scott, in which a crew member of the space ship Nostromo turns out to be an android robot with a hidden agenda;

- Blade Runner (1982) by Ridley Scott, in which the title character (played by Harrison Ford) hunts down rebel android replicants; 

- and The Terminator (1984) by James Cameron, in which man and machine fight each other to the death. 

The sci-fi movies A.I. (2001) by Steven Spielberg and her (2013) by Spike Jonze feel less fatalistic, and appeal to our sympathy, or at least empathy, with the human-all-too-human ways in which intelligent machines could possibly experience themselves and their interaction with humans.

Labyrinth

Unlike The Terminator, Ex Machina is not an action movie. Nor a horror movie like Alien. Neither an epic space trip like 2001: A Space Odyssey or a dystopian neo-noir detective story like Blade Runner. And certainly not an adventurous fairy tale like A.I. or a poetic rom-com drama like her. 

Still, as a suspenseful cerebral mystery drama, Garland's remarkable directorial debut recalls certain notable narrative and visual aspects of the aforementioned sc-fi movies. The often soft lighting in Ex Machina reminded me of the dreamy pastel colors in her. And during strange power cuts in Nathan's villa, the red emergency light in his lab recalls the red lighting of the iconic sequence in which the rogue HAL-computer is disabled in 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the same way HAL and also the replicants in Blade Runner have a will of their own, Ava seems to resist the authoritarian way in which she's treated by Nathan. It's as if she's saying: I'm not an object. And although in a strict material sense, Ava, evidently, is an object, and a man-made one for that, designed to serve humans, Garland leaves it up to the viewer to decide what, or who, Ava ultimately is. In doing so, Garland asks the viewer the most pertinent question in Ex Machina: how would you deal with Ava? Would you treat her as a woman or as a mere machine? Would you care for 'her' feelings or treat 'it' like nothing more than you would a toaster...? The existential questions and 'emotions' of Ava are reminiscent of the ones the machines ponder in A.I., Blade Runner and her. And the way the male protagonist in her (played by Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with a female computer program, is not unlike the way Caleb seems to succumb to Ava's charms. But what does Ava want? Is she honest? Or is she hiding her true intentions, like the secretive android robot in Alien...?

In short: following in the footsteps of some of the most influential, genre-defining sci-fi movies, Garland manages to translate his own vision of the complex dimensions of human interaction with intelligent robotics to the big screen in a way that is often as entertaining, compelling and profound as the sci-fi trailblazers of Kubrick, Scott, Cameron, Spielberg and Jonze.

Garland does so by luring the viewer into a labyrinth of deception and doubt. Is Nathan playing God? Is Ava nothing more than a 'parrot' desguised as a woman, simply reproducing what her software allows and can manage? Or is she really capable of creative thoughts and heartfelt emotions? How will Caleb react to the unexpected course of the experiment? And who is actually manipulating whom...?

Alicia Vikander as Ava.

Spectacular

Ex Machina looks great, by virtue of the clean cinematography, the atmospheric lighting and the clever set design. The story is almost exclusively set in Nathan's villa and lab. His modernist living quarters perfectly fit Nathan's hipster image of a trendy, innovative IT billionaire à la Steve Jobs. But the claustrophobic lab, where Ava 'lives', feels appropriately sinister.

Ava herself -the shining star of Ex Machina- looks nothing less than spectacular, thanks to great special effects that give her both a human and mechanical appearance, illustrating her ambiguous nature. She reminds me somewhat of the mysterious, ambivalent 'women' Scarlett Johansson 'inhabits' in her and in the brilliant sci-fi mystery Under the Skin (2013) by Jonathan Glazer (read our review); also nonhuman creatures who, like Ava, are curious to find out what makes humans human.

Besides the three main characters of Ex Machina (Caleb, Nathan an Ava), there's also the smaller part of Kyoko: an enigmatic Asian housemaid (played by the Japanese actress Sonoya Mizuno), who works in Nathan's villa as his personal assistant (in all ways imaginable...). And that's it: apart from some extra's at the beginning and end of the film, the cast of Ex Machina essentialy consists of only four actors. Yet, this turns out to be enough and never boring.

Oscar Isaac was the right choice for the role of the secretive and slippery genius Nathan. Domhnall Gleeson looks and acts appropriately nerdy for a young, predictable and thus manipulable programmer, but he excudes also a degree of inner strenght, which makes the Irish actor a good fit for the role of Caleb, who is a nerd but not a pushover. Sonoya Mizuno plays her part of the tacit maid Kyoko with bone-dry perfection. And Alicia Vikander is brilliant as the fascinating robot Ava, who sometimes looks more sensual than a real woman. You believe that it's a machine, but you also feel for her as if she's a real flesh and blood woman.

Intelligent

Garland's screenplay builds its suspense slowly. But meanwhile, there's room for some subtle comedy, e.g. in the hilarious little scene where Nathan and Kyoko engage in a funny synchronized disco dance to the funky 1983 R&B song Get Down Saturday Night by Oliver Cheatham. The rest of the soundtrack consists largely of simple, organic synthesizer music that feels threatening in the right places, without distracting from what's happening on screen.

The intelligent screenplay is anything but artificial (pun intended), which contributes to the credibility of the story. Except in a crucial scene during the surprising finale, where Nathan behaves less cautious than one would expect from a visionary genius. Ex Machina could also have benefited from some more suspense. 

Overall, this is one of the best directorial debuts in the history of cinema.

Joeri Naanai

Ex Machina - UK - 2015.

Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac and Sonoya Mizuno.

Genre: science fiction / thriller / mystery / psychological drama