There is a moment in Ex
Machina where Oscar Isaac’s Nathan sidles into an impromptu choreographed
dance routine with another bit player of the piece. It's a hilarious,
captivating and joyfully anachronistic scene that’s emblematic of Alex
Garland’s directorial debut. It’s so self-assured you’d have no problem
believing it’s the work of a time-tested auteur kicking back and showing the
kids how it’s done. It's also showcases Garland’s pallete for artifice, for
faking and manipulation (and all this to Get Down Saturday Night no less).
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| "I though the blue pill would be smaller" |
Conceptually, from the outset at least, we’re covering
well-trodden ground. The android with consciousness is nothing new, from Blade Runner to A.I. to Her more
recently, providing reflective discussion on the fabric of humanity, but
Garland finds ways to make it as fresh as if you were looking at it with virgin
eyes. The film opens with Domhnall Gleeson’s programmer, Caleb, winning a competition
to spend a week with the reclusive Nathan (Isaac), pioneering CEO of the search
engine Caleb works for. Nathan is no fey, Mark Zuckerberg-like wunderkind; he’s
a full-blooded, full-bearded Colonel Kurtz of the technological world. A
recluse in his ambiguously Nordic mountain-bound home, Nathan is building
something, something he says will be the greatest achievement in the history of
man (or is it the history of Gods…), a conscious A.I. Where Blade Runner presented the search for
the machine in the human, Garland flips this dynamic on its head. Instead,
Caleb is tasked with finding the human in the machine. The machine, Ava is her
name, is the film's thesis embodied in a luminous and supple shell; the literal
objectification of women, a man-manufactured prize in a glass showcase. Alicia
Vikander has been great in the frocks of A Royal Affair and Anna Karenina but
here is revealing and magnetic in the role of Ava delivering a testament to
what it is to be human; the good, the bad, the dark truths. On many levels it
is an unencumbered admission of man’s weakness and susceptibility to emotional
and sexual manipulation.
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| New extents of putting on her face |
What’s most startling about Ex Machina is how Garland, ostensibly a screenwriter and novelist,
flourishes in the director’s chair; it’s a composed and disciplined film. He
displays a visual sensibility and conciseness of vision, on his first turn no
less, to match any time-appointed auteur working today. The film looks
incredible, sparing and aptly clinical thanks to Rob Hardy (the reason Blitz is
the best looking Statham film) and sets the stage for the ever-shifting and
escalating interplay between the three leads. As stated, it’s not much of a
surprise that Garland’s script is razor sharp; dark, cerebral, acerbic but
still human. It’s very much a three-man/machine piece with Isaac and Gleeson
only further cementing themselves as two of the finest working today (boding
very well for their joint future in the Star Wars behemoth) but most of all
it’s proper Sci-Fi. Like Garland’s previous work on Sunshine and Jonathan Glazer’s Under
the Skin last year, it’s a film about ideas, ideas of theology, morality, technology and
humanity. In one fell swoop Garland has marked himself out as one of the most
utterly exciting filmmakers working today and even among his pitch-perfect cast
he really is the star of the show.
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