Alex Garland’s auspicious directorial debut, Ex Machina, illustrates the philosophical depth that can be achieved when science-fiction is distilled down to its raw materials. Composed, disciplined, and small in scale, the film is the antithesis of the blockbuster epic, featuring not one alien horde or starship armada. While it contains elements of romantic tragedy, Ex Machina is primarily a nervy psychological thriller, a three-way chess match that unfolds in a single locale. What emerges from such an unassuming foundation, however, is as exhilarating and frightening as any saga of galactic apocalypse.
Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a programmer at a search engine company, and has just won a stay at the remote but luxurious compound of the firm’s reclusive billionaire founder, Nathan (Oscar Isaac). Upon Caleb's arrival, Nathan reveals that his house is also a bleeding-edge research laboratory, that he has succeeded in creating artificial intelligence, and—most startling of all—that he has placed that synthetic mind into a life-like (albeit half-completed) robot. Nathan offers Caleb the opportunity to interact with this android, dubbed Ava (Alicia Vikander), and perform a variant Turing Test. Does anything about Ava seem programmed or artificial? Or is she, for all intents and purposes, a person?
Writer-turned-director Garland presents this story with admirable efficiency and an enveloping atmosphere that conveys wonder, disquiet, and terror in equal measure. The film features some astonishing visual effects, but such wizardry functions seamlessly with Mark Digby’s superb, modernist production design, rather than dazzling for its own sake. Befitting a sci-fi parable, the film engages bluntly with its themes; the characters openly discuss thorny questions of mind, freedom, and the self. However, such candor feels entirely appropriate for Ex Machina, which not only succeeds as a first-class futurist thriller, but approaches its outlandish premise with sensitivity and conviction.
Ex Machina opens Friday, April 24 at the Tivoli Theatre, 6350 Delmar, 314-727-7271.
