Muhammad Muzammal
Staff Writer
Real science fiction is built on ideas, which makes it scarce in the heavily-commercialized world of Hollywood. Science fiction movies offer fascinating ideas, but become lost in the typical confines of the horror/action genre. However, there are a few exceptions.
Novelist and screenwriter Alex Garland’s directorial debut “Ex Machina” is a rare science fiction film that relies more on ideas than on story and violence. The film has doses of both, but they are undermined by philosophical discussions, which Garland provides through imagery and densely-packed dialogue. The writer/director embeds themes of socially-constructed femininity, the ethical horror of artificial intelligence and the possible consciousness of a robot – all of which deepen the rich material of the film.
Caleb (Domnhall Gleeson), a young and lonely computer programmer, works for Bluebook, a Google-like conglomerate established in the near future. Caleb is chosen based on his merit to help the CEO of Bluebook, the freaky and menacing Nathan (Oscar Issac), by being the human subject of a Turing test. He works with his computer counterpart, Nathan’s newly-invented robot Ava (Alicia Vikander), a robot with the face of a woman, but the mechanical, wiry body of a robot. Throughout the film, Caleb begins to fall for Ava, arguably a femme fatale, whom plans to escape from her cruel inventor.
The film, like the screenplay, is tight and, to a degree, claustrophobic. The slow-moving, tension-heavy mood and the setting of Nathan’s sheltered home in the middle of a forest, make “Ex Machina” a beautiful blend of Ridley Scott’s “Alien” and “Blade Runner” and Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” – films that share the common theme of showing humanity’s dark side. All these characteristics can be found in “Ex Machina.”
Nathan, who was a prodigy in computer coding by the age of 13, is a brilliant creep. He creates concubines of female robots, which have built-in consciousness and human skin, giving him means for sex and house cleaning. In a disturbing scene where Caleb opens a closet revealing Nathan’s many female robot girlfriends, Garland introduces to us the theme of a socially-constructed femininity. Through Nathan’s vision of the female identity, shown in his robotic models, we see that they are all constructed according to images from magazines, movies, TV shows and video games. The message here is that the feminine identity, frequently found throughout society, is a male construct.
Perhaps it is comforting that Ava wants to break out against Nathan. Although her intentions are deadly, they are philosophically sound. Garland does not give into romanticism when developing the relationship between Caleb and Ava. Instead, he gives Ava’s reasoning pure logic, which is how a robot is expected to act.
Along with the storyline, the performances are outstanding. Domhnall Gleeson plays Caleb as a naive, realistic human being and is the most relatable character in the film. Alicia Virkander plays Ava as a robot afraid to die and a being that longs to escape. Oscar Issac delivered the best performance as the demented Nathan, whose drunkenness and obsession with creating females underline his controlling, hermit-like lifestyle.
The music by Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow is ambient and, like the film, ominous. The music’s digital feel appropriately fits the futuristic gilded age that Garland creates in the film. Cinematographer Ron Hardy uses images of Garland’s world as distant and cold, yet paradoxically beautiful, especially when it comes to the natural rain forest, which surrounds Nathan’s sleek, hidden home.
“Ex Machina” is memorably compelling and powerful. The climax of the film, as well as the events preceding it, don’t venture past the harsh truths of what an automated, conscious machine can do when it is threatened by its creator. This is a noir-thriller, an Oedipal film, and a great exercise in the horror movie genre. Above all, it is a real science fiction film that is also the finest film of 2015 thus far.