He
created a search engine more ubiquitous than google, but he wants his employees
to call him just plain “Nathan.” Of course, he is prickly, condescending, and
ethically challenged, but few people have to deal with him, because he is also
reclusive. However, Caleb, a bright-eyed coder, has won the opportunity to pal
around with his company’s secretive founder in his remote Bond villain villa somewhere
in the Alaskan wilderness. It was not a random drawing. “Nathan” has reason to
believe Caleb is the right candidate to apply a history-making Turing Test in
Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in New York.
For
Nathan, the challenge of creating an artificial intelligence that can pass the
Turing Test is a sufficient reason to create a thinking android like Ava. Any moral
reservations are lost on the arrogant and myopic genius. Caleb is a different
story, but as soon as he lays eyes on Ava, his enthusiasm increases
tremendously.
In
seven sessions, Caleb will conduct interviews with Ava to determine if, when,
and how her responses deviate from human norms. Granted, it is not a blind
Turing Test, but subtleties of meaning that can only be picked up face-to-face
are what really interest Nathan and Caleb. Of course, he will be watching
through surveillance cameras, except when freak power outages cut the feed (is
this Alaska or California?). Ava makes sure that happens regularly during their
sessions, so she can warn Caleb not to trust Nathan’s motives or intentions. Thus
begins a complicated battle of natural and artificial wits, as she Turing Tests
Caleb right back.
Yes,
Ex Machina closely follows in the tradition
of Bladerunner and Automata, suggesting if the AI apocalypse
is coming, humanity probably deserves whatever it gets. Nonetheless, the brainy
simplicity of Ava and Caleb’ verbal sparring sessions and the who’s-playing-who
drama are intellectually heady and legitimately suspenseful. Despite Ava’s
revealing circuitry, it is the notable sort of science fiction film that is far
more reliant on ideas than effects.
In
his directorial debut, Garland (a frequent Danny Boyle collaborator) has an eye
for the slightly surreal, but he keeps the sf speculation grounded in the believable
and the foreseeable. Strangely though, Nathan’s mysterious Japanese-speaking
house servant Kyoko is a more alluring figure than Alicia Vikander’s Ava, but
maybe the Swedish thesp is just more compatible with the Nordic severity of the
interiors (shot in the high-end Norwegian hipster Juvet Landscape Hotel).
Oscar
Isaac channels the dark sides of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and John McAfee,
delighting in his bouts of manic depressive hedonism and megalomaniacal paranoia.
It is a great work of on-screen villainy. In contrast, Domhnall Gleason does
his usual sad sack shtick as Caleb, but it suits the film’s needs. Viklander is
disconcertingly awkward, like a new born colt of an android, but she and Gleason
develop strong chemistry in their interview-and-seduction sequences. Likewise,
Sonoya Mizuno’s Kyoko is rather creepy and vulnerable in an enigmatic, wtf kind
of way.
