Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, disturbing content, nudity and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.24.15
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley would
have loved this film.
Indeed, granted a time machine
and access to today's technology, she likely would have made this film.
 |
| During one of the rare moments when he feels like showing off, Nathan (Oscar Isaac, left) allows Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) into the lab where all of the "bits" were created, which eventually came together as a disarmingly personable robot dubbed Ava. |
At its core, writer/director Alex
Garland’s Ex Machina is an absorbing update of Shelley’s Frankenstein: a
21st century cautionary tale about the limits of humanity’s hubris, and the
unintended consequences of science outstripping ethics and morality. Midway
through the first act, we can’t help recalling the wonderful sentiment that has
been paraphrased in so many sci-fi B-movies: “There are things we are not meant
to know” (which likely originated, appropriately enough, with a line of
dialogue from 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein).
Garland’s film is thoughtful,
methodical science-fiction: akin to Duncan Jones’ Moon, which made a
well-deserved splash back in 2009. Like Moon, Garland’s narrative is an
intimate character study that plays out in an isolated, claustrophobic setting.
And, as with Moon, Garland’s storyline revolves around a core mystery that
becomes increasingly disturbing as we move inexorably toward a chilling third
act.
Along the way, we ponder
questions relating to existence, consciousness and the nature of one’s soul:
the big issues that always arise when contemplating the possibility of creating
life. Heady stuff. But although Garland’s film is dialogue-heavy, it’s never
boring ... in great part because production designer Mark Digby has crafted a
fascinating, yet always persuasively believable setting for these events.
Not to mention the simultaneous
creation of an amazing “subject” for what becomes an uncomfortably twisted
psychological clash between two men.
Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is an
unremarkable programmer employed by a Google-esque Internet search giant dubbed
Blue Book (deliberately named after philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s 1930s-era
notes for his class on the philosophy of language). He’s delighted one day to
discover that he has won a company-wide contest to spend a week with Blue
Book’s brilliant, über-wealthy and reclusive founder, Nathan (Oscar Isaac).
Nathan lives (mostly) alone in an
imposing home/lab built into the remote heart of Alaska: reachable only by
helicopter, and isolated from all of civilization’s trappings. Although uneasy
from the moment he passes through the compound’s fortified front door, Caleb is
too excited to worry about such things; he’s overcome by this opportunity of
quality face time with a genius blend of Howard Hughes, Steve Jobs and Richard
Branson.
But the dynamic is lopsided,
leaving Caleb unbalanced from their initial encounter. Gleeson is spot-on as a
dweebish, meek and somewhat shy social misfit who never quite mastered the art
of personal interaction, despite his ability to over-rationalize such behavior.
Isaac, in contrast, is authoritative and forceful: always working out,
signifying Nathan’s obsession with physical as well as mental strength, and as
a not-so-subtle means of indicating his need for absolute control.
Isaac literally radiates the
arrogance of a brilliant individual who regards other people as no more than a
means to his own ends; at the same time, Nathan makes transparently “generous”
efforts to ease his guest’s curiosity and anxiety. We aren’t fooled for a
moment, although Caleb is: Nathan finds him quite amusing, in a manner that soon
feels ... dangerous.
At the same time, Nathan displays
the instability of someone who has lived by himself for far too long. His
efforts at bonhomie are awkward and forced, as if calculated and insufficiently
rehearsed. He also drinks too much, which makes him volatile for entirely
different reasons.
Right away, no matter what’s
coming, we fear that Caleb is in way over his head.
The reason for Caleb’s visit is
revealed quickly. For some indeterminate period of time, squirreled away in the
Alaskan wilds while his legend grows, Nathan has been trying to master
artificial intelligence (AI). His breakthrough creation is a robot dubbed Ava
(Alicia Vikander), which is shaped more or less like a human female.
Her “intelligence” is an amalgam
of every individual, throughout the entire world, who has accessed Nathan’s
Blue Book search engine; he has hacked all laptops, smart phones, tablets and
you-name-it digital devices, in order to stuff Ava’s “brain” with the entire
wealth of mankind’s information, behavior and culture.
This has made her incredibly
smart and perceptive ... but is she actually sentient?
And that’s the question: Caleb
has been brought in to engage Ava in a “Turing Test,” in order to determine
whether he’s interacting with AI — a machine — or a “person.” The resulting narrative
is chaptered by Caleb’s seven “sessions” with Ava, reflecting his seven-day
stay with Nathan.
Ava is a quick study, and she
quickly begins to explore incomputable concepts such as gender perception,
desire, frustration, anger, mixed agendas ... and trust. Not to mention a
healthy dollop of patronizing amusement, which can’t help reminding us of
Nathan. To what degree might she have begun to mirror his behavior?
At the same time, Ava exhibits
childlike confusion and helplessness; Caleb can’t help feeling sorry for her,
particularly since — as an unspecified safety precaution — her “quarters”
remain separated from the rest of the compound by ultra-strong, unbreakable
glass. Their “interviews” are conducted via hidden microphones and speakers.
At first, Caleb can’t take Ava seriously;
his initial questions are analytical and scientific, no doubt reflecting his
belief that true AI is unlikely, if not impossible. But as the first few days
pass, his smug convictions fade in the face of ... well, Ava’s face: her
earnest expressions, not to mention the shy pride she takes in donning clothes
like a “real” young woman.
Caleb begins to approach her more
from instinct, and soon wonders — here’s a disturbing thought — if she’s doing
the same.
Questions, questions. Not to
mention motivations. Our suspicions grow, as do Caleb’s. Why is he really here?
Why did Nathan shape Ava in the form of a (mostly) attractive young woman? What’s
behind the compound’s brief, mysterious power outages that allow Caleb and Ava
to talk candidly, knowing that Nathan can’t be monitoring them? Or is this
another psychological ruse?
And — the big puzzler — what is
Nathan’s endgame?
Vikander is dazzling in her role:
wholly convincing as a machine attempting to persuade her new “friend” — and us
— that’s she’s actually something more. Vikander is by turns coy, vulnerable or
distressed, yet there’s always something not quite “right” about the way she
moves, and the inflections of her speech. Her performance is striking, her work
deserving placement among the very few actors who’ve been genuinely persuasive
as “others” attempting to pass as human. (Jeff Bridges’ title role in 1984’s Starman comes to mind.)
At the same time, the Swedish
actress is disarmingly beautiful and disturbingly erotic, particularly given
the nature of the “human bits” — face, hands, feet — that are separated by a translucent,
mesh-like “skin” that reveals servos, gears and other mechanical bits beneath.
It’s impressive work by Digby and visual effects supervisor Andrew Whitehurst,
because there’s simply no way all of Vikander could “fit” within Ava’s form ...
and yet there she is. Quite startling.
Sonoya Mizuno is more subtly
unsettling as Kyoko, a live-in cook/maid who handles basic household chores,
and whose silent deference toward Nathan is quite disconcerting.
To put it bluntly, everything
about this arrangement, this environment, feels awkward and psychologically unstable.
It's twisted and unsettling, and Garland knows precisely how to turn the
screws.
He has spent a decade and change
re-imagining sci-fi and horror clichés, often pushing past our comfort zone. He
has worked several times with director Danny Boyle, most aggressively with
2002’s amped-up, way-scary 28 Days Later... More recently, Garland adapted
Kazuo Ishiguro’s chilling novel for director Mark Romanek’s utterly
heartbreaking 2010 adaptation of Never Let Me Go. That film also ponders
moral imperatives in a similarly quiet, highly disturbing manner.
Never Let Me Go is
frighteningly effective because it feels like a possible future, given the way
in which humanity’s ethics dwindle under extreme circumstances. Ex Machina also feels highly likely, because Garland — making an impressive directing
debut — sells the premise so believably.
The stuff of nightmares. Things
we’re not meant to know.
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