Spoilerless Review
Alex Garland’s directorial debut, Ex Machina, is a simple, straightforward narrative that blurs what defines human sentience, blending Pygmalian myth with Frankenstein in a slow-burning, every-minute-is-beautiful mind-wrinkling film. The story drives right into the plot, with Colin, a junior-level programmer at a company specializing in Internet search-related services (the film’s version of Google) winning a contest to visit the CEO and creator of the company’s research facility (built into a mountain! Modern minimalist interior!) on his isolated island. Nathan, played superbly by Oscar Isaac, is the technological genius behind the pseudo-Google company, who’s brought Colin in order to complete the Turing Test (with the complication of gender) with Ava, a female humanoid robot. What follows is a series of seven sessions between Colin and Ava in order for Colin to determine if she is indistinguishable from a human. Gender makes this different from a true Turing Test, and the rest of the film is built from this premise.
The relationship between Colin and Ava complicate notions of human sexuality and gender relations. Should all machines be genderless? Can a machine be considered a human? Is gender central to defining what makes something human? This rat king of questions shatter fragile human concepts. It takes the Turing Test on at a different angle, and when it supersedes it, the question of whether or not the notion of being human has been accomplished is brought to the foreground, and the audience is left wondering if this excites or frightens them. There is no simple definition that defines what is “human.”
The film also remarks on one of modern society’s greatest troubles: privacy. Through data mining, Nathan is able to find out all the relevant details of any living person, from their search history, purchases, and social media. In Ex Machina, the artificial intelligence machines, gain some of this intellectual power from search (a Siri that asks itself questions and provides answers, like a brain).
It’s the best science-fiction film in recent memory, and the best one featuring artificial intelligence since 2013’s Her, a film which also complicates human sexuality with artificial intelligence, though Her is much more romantic, with only brief and subtle nods to any bigger picture ideas. Honestly, it’s the best film I’ve seen this year, and thought-provoking enough to make me glad to hear about the recent reduction in the NSA’s surveillance programs.
Finally, how about that ending?
-Bryan Díaz, Writer