Garlanded with praise

LIKE all good films about robots, “Ex Machina” is really about people. It’s a gripping thriller concerned not just with how human artificial intelligence (AI) can seem, but also with how robotic and devoid of humanity people can be too. 

A tight script from Alex Garland—author of “The Beach”, screenwriter behind “28 Days Later”, “Sunshine” and “Dredd”, now also in the director’s chair for the first time—increases the tension, and three terrific performances battle for centre stage: Oscar Isaac as Nathan, the alcoholic millionaire and former child genius, Domhnall Gleeson as Caleb, the earnest young protégé helicoptered to Nathan’s secluded pad-cum-laboratory to help test his latest work, and the increasingly impressive Alicia Vikander as Ava, the artificial consciousness Nathan has packed into an attractive female form for Caleb to try out, in more ways than one. 

These are meaty, complex roles. The three main actors have been in the ascendant in recent years (notably Mr Isaac, whose breakthrough "Inside Llewyn Davis" was a hit last year) but all are allowed greater freedom here to really exercise their acting chops. They toy constantly with one another—and with the audience—taking the much tried and often tired AI format to new levels. 

Mr Isaac is a menacing colossus. When he’s not pumping iron or dejectedly glugging red wine, he’s busy eyeing his handiwork and guest through the spy-cams that pepper his concrete (and mostly underground) lair. When Caleb first arrives, the lucky employee of Nathan’s technology company to have won a trip to the boss’s estate, Nathan asks him to perform a Turing Test on Ava. Invented by the British codebreaker Alan Turing, the test asks people to judge whether the respondent is human or machine. 

But since Ava’s transparent midriff and limbs purposefully expose the workings of her hardware, surely the test is invalidated from the outset, queries Caleb. He already knows she is a robot. Ah yes, replies Nathan. But the trick is to see whether Caleb can still feel that Ava is a woman, despite knowing from the outset that she is not. 

It is in a rather sinister and murky world of gender politics that “Ex Machina” finds its entirely unique rhythm. Is Ava falling for Caleb? Is Caleb falling for Ava? He certainly seems to be: Mr Gleeson has a natural naivety and boyish charm—like Hugh Grant in his early films, with less of the caddish dandy about him and more of the geek.

In one of the increasingly frequent generator blackouts, Ava tells him he should not trust anything Nathan says. Later, she says she would like to go on a date and asks him whether he finds her attractive. His confusion is telling: can he, or we, tell the difference between woman and machine anymore? Is Nathan the oppressor and Caleb the rescuer, in some kind of new-age replay of fairy-tale heroes and villains, fighting over the spoils while the subservient “other”—cyborg or woman—sits silently pleading from her cage?

Ms Vikander used to be a ballet-dancer (she trained at the Royal Swedish Ballet School in Stockholm for nine years) and it shows; as Ava her movements are graceful and precise, almost too precise at times to be human. The Scandinavian accent that peeks out ever so slightly in her recent appearance as Vera Brittain in “Testament of Youth” is more audible here, but it fits, adding to the sense that something is not quite right. However much Ava tries to fit in, she cannot. A highly disturbing oration from a drunk Nathan on the functionality of her sexual organs adds to the unease.

The scenes are just as carefully calibrated on a visual level as the script itself, an achievement that confirms Mr Garland’s talent as a director as well as screenwriter. One, where Nathan joins his humourless maid Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno) for some synchronised disco dancing is particularly clever, each bump and hustle more robotic and joyless than the last.

The film's title comes from the phrase "Deus Ex Machina" ("God from the machine"), which refers to the gods that were often ushered into classical plays on mechanical platforms in the final minutes to provide a happy ending. Today it generally refers to slightly unbelievable plot devices that appear as if from nowhere to resolve things. The film has no such device and arguably raises more questions than it answers; indeed, a slightly limp ending may disappoint some. But in the end this is a small quibble, and in any case, ambiguity is presumably exactly what Mr Garland intended. There are no heroes or Gods here. “Ex Machina” is an aggressive, ominous piece of work that sticks in the mind long after a viewing.