Ex Machina
2015 • R • 1h 48mins • Watch trailer • Rent it
🤖 AI at the Movies: A double-feature starring our robot overlords
You’re reading Pizza & a Movie—rewinding the stories of rental classics. This is part two of AI at the Movies. Last week we put in our AirPods with Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson in Her. Tonight we’re stepping into a madman’s bunker to rising levels of “yikes” with Ex Machina.
Here’s the plot. Lonely developer Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), winner of a workplace draw to meet his company’s reclusive billionaire founder, helicopters into Nathan’s (Oscar Isaac) national park of an estate. The bunker-like house issues him a keycard—always a good sign—and in he goes. The door closes eerily behind him. Caleb wanders around until he meets the man himself, who’s working out in a beater and basketball shorts in a real “oh hey, didn’t see you there” move. Mute housekeeper Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno) watches.
Nathan gives Caleb the skinny: Caleb’s here as a human Turing test to see if Nathan’s homemade AI robot has its own consciousness or not. Next Caleb meets Ava (Alicia Vikander), a striking mix of Alienware translucent limbs, a chainmail-nouveau sweater vest, and human face and hands. It’s a trip. But she’s nice! You’d like her. Well, Caleb does anyway—a lot. But he’s a pro, rolls up his sleeves and gets to work interviewing Ava like he’s Clarice gabbing with Dr. Lecter. But our belle of the ball is in a bind. Can he keep up with Nathan? Does Nathan think he’s smart? And can he help seemingly helpless Ava? More importantly, does she think he’s cute? He’s into both of them, but how’s a girl to choose?
Alex Garland, Nerd King
This is Alex Garland’s first movie. Well, sort of.
He was new to sitting in the director’s chair, but it’s not the first script he ever wrote. Garland made his name with the novel The Beach, a bestseller that became a Danny Boyle movie (‘00). He went on to write Boyle the script for 28 Days Later (‘02) and Sunshine (‘07) and handled rewrites for 28 Weeks Later (‘07). His first all-Garland project was Dredd (‘12), which headliner Karl Urban claims Garland ghost-directed in addition to writing and producing. If you want the most Alex Garland possible, check out Devs (’20), a TV show he created, wrote, directed, and executive produced. Just kept raising his hand when they asked who wanted to do what, I guess.
The roots of Ex Machina go back to Garland’s childhood. As a 12-year-old goofing around with his parents’ computer, he got the feeling it had its own thoughts. Something in there calling the shots. Over the years, he tickled that idea with friends in neuroscience, genetics and cognitive robotics. Some of them pitched in with this movie. It’s fun to take in a project you can tell the maker’s had marinading for a long time.
Garland wanted total creative control for Ex Machina, his first solo outing. So he made it for as little money as possible—$15M, somehow. Didn’t want fight sequences, chases, or other norm-core action scenes shoehorned in every fifteen minutes by a studio focused on making a big budget back.
Costs fell because they shot mostly on a soundstage and went old-school with visual effects. VFX outfit DNeg rotoscoped Vikander’s hands and face. She wore a full bodysuit for a shoot that didn’t use any green screens. They filmed her scenes twice, once with her and once without. Had to have a clean background to digitally paint her out with. The result? My brain cannot figure out what’s real and what’s not in a way that makes it all seem real.
The Haunted House
This is a stealth horror movie. Okay, not that stealth. After Caleb walks in, the door closes behind him all on its own. In my experience? Normal, safe doors don’t do that. We’re meant to think a guy as successful and at ease as Nathan can’t be bad. But of course guys like him always are. Bored billionaires don’t become Batman, they become Elon Musk. We think Caleb is our hero because we’re tricked into it. He’s presented as our surrogate, as new to Nathan’s secret world as we are. But he’s just the jock who dies helping the true final girl—Ava.
Nathan is the big-bad here. Sure, he asks Caleb to see if Ava is human. But to Nathan, no one is human. Everyone’s an expendable resource, a write-off, a deletable line of code. His psychopathy has many spin-offs: data theft, privacy violation, rape, wrath, captivity, hubris, inhumanity, unspeakably terrible outfits, etc. He’s the beneficiary of late-stage capitalism, a guy who slipped through the cracks to become a billionaire. And has no idea what to do with a country’s worth of financial resources. So he builds a new race of women over which he is king, a behavior that would also make a therapist independently wealthy unpacking.
Nathan’s house is haunted. And like every good haunted house, it has rules. Surveillance, power cuts, key cards, unbreakable glass—all part of the game. Why is it surprising Ava gets out? She’s had longer to study this tricky Super Mario level than anyone else. Caleb, you never stood a chance, pal
Stealing Shakespeare
Dust off your Brit Lit notes because it’s about to be a bard-y party. Remember B-list Shakespeare play The Tempest? Here’s its deal. Prospero is a noble in exile on a remote island. With him are his daughter, Miranda, and two servants, Caliban and Ariel. Caliban is half-human, half-not, forced into slavery by Prospero. Ariel is a fairy also under Prospero’s thumb but more as an ally. A storm—the titular tempest—washes fresh faces ashore (wow that’s a gross visual). These include Ferdinand, who Prospero manipulates into a relationship with his daughter.
Sound familiar? Our Prospero, Nathan, control his brutalist compound—as inaccessible as an island. Ava is presented as his daughter Miranda but is really the uncontrollable hybrid creature Caliban. Kyoko is our Ariel, the passive ally. Caleb acts as Ferdinand, the new blood who’s a puppet from the jump. But that’s where the similarities end.
Ex Machina is no The Tempest. In Shakespeare’s yarn, Prospero reforms, Ferdinand and Miranda find true love, Ariel is freed and Caliban promises to play nice. Garland goes a different way. While our bard pal gives Prospero a redemptive change of heart, none of Garland’s characters change. Rings true, doesn’t it? A guy like Nathan never lets go of control. A goof like Caleb never catches on. An intelligence like Ava never loses if the game goes on long enough. A slave like Kyoko kills her master when she has the chance.
Picture-in-Picture
Ex Machina bursts with non-narrative symbolism. Pictures that convey truth but don’t lead to a larger truth. Like at the end, when Caleb is trapped behind a glass door. We’re used to seeing Ava in that pickle. Is the movie punishing Caleb by imprisoning him? Staging a moral lesson on what happens when you try to help something you don’t understand? I don’t think so. It’s just the irony of swapped spots. Caleb was just a kid caught in the middle of Mom and Dad’s fight.
The movie’s full of visuals like this. The helicopter ride in that reminds you of Jurassic Park, setting the tone. Caleb’s interviews with Ava with their shades of Basic Instinct’s police station interrogation. Makes you ask who has the power. The mirror-faced closets full of pre-Avas that open like giant doll blister packs. The final moments with Ava on the metro pavement that make you think of the myth of the cave. They all lead you through Garland’s own mind more than handing you a unified theory. Isn’t that more fun anyway?
One more thing, while we’re on visuals. Ava dresses herself three times by my count. The first time, she puts on her Sunday school outfit, knit tights and too-long cardigan sleeves and all. It’s calibrated to con Caleb. The second time, it’s other robots’ skin she’s suiting up in. She looks in the mirror—this outfit’s for her. And last, she puts on a power skirt suit and heels, very much the executive on her way to her private helicopter. She’s the new ascendent Nathan. Like with Her last week, the costuming gives everything away if you’re paying attention.
Deploying the Code
Ex Machina premiered at South by Southwest on March 14 of ’15. Oh boy, they choreographed a stunt to go with it that would never fly now. Marketing folks created a Tinder profile for Ava. Once matched with real people, she asked a series of questions similar to Ava’s Q&A in the movie. Eventually her I’m gonna say victims were lead to her Instagram page, a promotion for the movie. We used to be a lot sillier about social media. Maybe that was good? I dunno. It was a younger time.
Ex Machina cost fifteen million bucks. I’m no expert, but that’s nothin’. Isaac and Gleeson were both in The Force Awakens the same year. It cost $447M. For this money, not very many people had to like it. So did they?
Critics ate this up. It’s critical catnip—risky, but makes you feel smart even as it yanks the rug out from under you. It also stacked up really well against the weird cluster of other robot/AI movies of the time like Chappie (‘15) and Transcendence (‘14). Folks compared it to Her (‘13), which similarly centers around whether we, the watchers, buy that the AI in question is conscious. So it’s cerebral. Reviewer Kenneth Turan writing for the LA Times called it, “a spooky piece of speculative fiction that’s completely plausible, capable of both thinking big thoughts and providing pulp thrills.” So it’s fun and scary, too, a cinematic grandkid of The Terminator (‘84).
Others teased out its gothic tone and similarity to Frankenstein. The AV Club pointed out its color-coded production design, which shows you homey color and then sudden red, daring your conscious mind to override the sense that danger is closest at hand then. Like last week, you can tell this is art because it takes each critic in a different direction.
Ex Machina made its budget back roughly 2.5x. I don’t remember a lot of advertising for this, especially that wasn’t online. It really felt like an internet culture movie. Surprising it did this well, for a movie that’s creepy and makes you feel bad. Everyone I worked with in tech at the time was talking about it. Maybe all of us with MacBook Pros went to see it a half dozen times apiece, I dunno.
That’s a Wrap
Among other things Ex Machina does well, it’ll make you uncomfortable. With technology, with power, with naked people, etc. It doesn’t get less harrowing on rewatches. But, if anything, it’s more relevant now than ever. Though it is weird that in ’15 we thought, maybe AI will have a body and want to kill you! But now in ’23 AI just wants to write your Microsoft Word document for you.
That’s a wrap for Ex Machina and for this double feature, AI at the Movies. If you want to keep watching, treat yourself to another double-up with 2001: A Space Odyssey (‘68) and The Matrix (‘99). I’d say they’re the two that shaped our cultural idea of robots with a mind of their own more than anything else.
Next week it’s a break for me, then I’ll be back in your inbox the Friday after that.
And, hey, if this one passed your test, share it with a pal who’d like it too! Make ‘em see color for the first time.
NOTES:
Oscar Isaac was in a ska band called The Blinking Underdogs in the late nineties. They must have been okay—they opened for Green Day.
Isaac would team up with Garland again for a small role in Annihilation (’18).
Is Dredd good? I avoided it, probably because of the macho vibes. Maybe I should give it another look though?
Andrew Mcdonald, Boyle’s longtime producer, filled that role for this movie too. He and Garland would have met each other through The Beach and 28 Days Later.
Universal released this outside of the States but refused to here. A24 handled distribution for us, helping to define the studio’s vibe. It was only two years old at the time.
The sets for Nathan’s house used 15,000 tungsten bulbs to give them warmth and softness instead of the typical sci-fi florescence. Like with Her, they were after something different here.
I wonder if the scene with newly skinned Ava standing in front of a mirror naked is a reference to Adam and Eve in the Bible story. Freshly made, naked, about to do things their maker didn’t like love love.
Caleb is a chess piece being moved around by two different manipulators. he knows it, but can’t overcome it.
Here’s a take: What if our orphan Caleb just met the mom, Ava, and Dad, Nathan, he’s been missing for a decade? Big-time Oedipus complex if that’s the case.