Movie Review: "Ex Machina"

Ex Machina (2015)

R

5 Stars out of 5

Director/Writer                 Alex Garland

Domhnall Gleeson           Caleb
Oscar Isaac                        Nathan
Alicia Vikander                 Ava
Sonoya Mizuno                Kyoko

 

Like “Under the Skin”, “2001: A Space Odyssey”, or “Cloud Atlas”, director/writer Alex Garland’s “Ex Machina” uses science fiction to brilliantly explore topics not easily examined in other genres: male/female power relationships, male roles in society, the importance given to superficial appearances, what it means to be human, and above all else the role that lying plays in everyday human experience. Almost every aspect of “Ex Machina” comes together to produce a film that will stand as a classic definition of not only what can be done with science fiction, but a movie that can stand just like “2001” as an icon for big ideas intelligently explored in film.

“Ex Machina” begins with a young programmer, Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) winning a company-wide contest to spend a week with his company’s CEO and founder, Nathan (Oscar Isaac). Nathan is an amalgam of contemporary technology-based corporate titans such as Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, or more to the point in terms of actual technology, the two founders of Google: Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Nathan wrote the code at age thirteen that formed the basis his company, Blue Book (its name surely also an amalgam from Blue Tooth and Face Book). However, while Nathan has advanced in chronological age from thirteen to roughly thirty-five, he remains emotionally a teenager, as the naïve Caleb will soon discover once he reaches Nathan’s fortress-like home somewhere (seemingly) in the middle of Glacier National Park.

When Caleb first meets Nathan, the latter is busy flexing his muscles by pounding on a punching bag. Nathan mixes his language to Caleb with a hearty brew of frat-boy “bro’s” and “dudes”. He exudes his acquired alpha male status on multiple occasions by dismissing any comment he considers contrary by Caleb – this is no meeting of equals despite Nathan’s exhortation to Caleb that he consider it so. Nathan has brought Caleb to his home/laboratory in order that Caleb might assess whether or not a robot with artificial intelligence capabilities built by Nathan would pass the Turing Test. This test simply put is whether or not an AI when hidden from view from the tester would be indistinguishable from a human. Nathan has decided to up the ante in his test. He has made a sexualized female robot that is clearly a robot. He states this makes the test that much more difficult to administer and to pass. Will Caleb knowing that the robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander) be able to convince him that she is self-aware and actually thinking, not just simulating the same? Adding to the complexity is that Ava  has been built to look and act feminine within the constraints that she must also clearly be artificial and not organic in terms of her origins.

Thus ensues a series of interviews between Caleb and Ava that are set apart as if in chapters. It is a kind of cat and mouse game between Ava and the intelligent but confused Caleb, but also between Ava and Nathan as he watches unseen via cameras and audio hook-ups designed to let him observe. Nathan is helped to some degree by the mute Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno), someone Nathan claims can neither speak nor understand English. As the movie progresses, I was compelled almost from the beginning to start watching each scene and wondering whether the character was lying or not. Nathan with his unstable behavior of alternating intelligence, his belligerence, his constant heavy drinking seems to exude a kind of malignity that screams, “be careful Caleb, you are in danger”. This theme is bolstered early in the movie when Ava during one of the frequent electrical failures which she believes shield her from Nathan’s prying eyes, gives the same warning to Caleb, “Nathan is not your friend”.

But is Ava, Caleb’s friend? He stares at her longingly from the beginning. His focus on her face and hands, the only parts made to look human, allows him to forget that she is not human. It allows him to indulge his young male’s desire for feminine company, even as her programming (?) permits that she act as any young woman in her forced isolation would do. For her situation is not only peculiar in that she is a robot playing the role of a woman, she is also a “woman” in peril. Nathan has locked her into her room and will not permit her to roam freely throughout the house, let alone escape it to the outside world. Her peril is made that much more clear when she asks Caleb what will Nathan do with her once the “Turing Test” is concluded, pass or fail. Caleb states he does not know, but he worries, and his worries are made even more manifest once he learns from Nathan that like the earlier models of Ava 9.0, she will be re-made. She will lose all memory of the Ava that Caleb has come to know. Both Ava and Nathan make it quite clear to Caleb, Ava is in danger.

But who speaks the truth in this movie, what is Nathan’s, Ava’s, or even Kyoko’s agenda? As the movie progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that like Dr. Frankenstein, Nathan has started to think of himself in a God-like role. And yet, like the most typical of adolescent male tech nerds, he also dwells on the idea of a beautiful woman that is in thrall to his every whim. Has Nathan made Ava’s 1.0 to 9.0 to indulge his sexual desires, to become more God-like in his stunted emotional state, to exercise his formidable creativity, or more likely as with every flawed human, some combination of each, of good and evil? And what of Ava, does she truly have an interest in Caleb or is he merely as tool to attain her freedom? Should she attempt to pass the Turing Test and gain that freedom, or is that a fantasy; must she instead and unlike the generic woman-in-peril gain her freedom by taking it for herself by using the men that oppress her or stand in her way? Even the silent Kyoko, her hidden facial movements having revealed on more than one occasion that she too has her own agenda, what is it that she wants?

“Ex Machina” explores in careful detail each of these questions and brings the movie to a satisfying close; a close that suggests the gap between machine and human intelligence is narrower than one might think, especially when it comes to desires for personal freedom. Additionally, it suggests that lying and deception are behaviors that humans utilize so well in order to get their way, that that was the final test of Ava’s consciousness – that she not only sought her freedom but was sufficiently intelligent and self-aware that she could and would employ that most human of traits, lying to achieve her ends. And of course, not just lying, but violence of a very dispassionate nature would also be used by Ava to get her way - you can't get much more human than that.

But “Ex Machina” is really so much more. Watch how Caleb self-deceives himself about Ava. Of course Ava saw it too and used it to her advantage. But what is Caleb really thinking when he thinks of Ava? Does he focus solely on her all too beautiful human face and completely forget that physically she is anything but human. Does he stop to wonder at the nature of the mind within Ava’s physical form, at its so non-human origins? What possibly could such a mind value and want; is there any overlap with Caleb's mind? Does he really believe that her Google/internet models of human behavior make her human (let alone female) in any manner? Or is he simply reacting as his male genes have programmed him? He sees the feminine parts of a thing, and his maleness drives him as if he too were a machine programmed to seek out and mate with such a “female”. In what ways is his behavior any less programmed than hers?

That “Ex Machina” discusses these topics carefully but in a manner that is not off-putting, is testament to the writing. That the viewer can readily identify the character type played by Oscar Isaac is proof of his fine acting (see him also in 2014’s “A Most Violent Year”, or HBO’s 2015 “Show Me a Hero”). In a far more subtle role of Ava where Swedish actress Alicia Vikander has little more than her face and voice, the actress must display a kind of pseudo-naiveté that suggests vulnerability and yet seems to conceal a kind of powerful intelligence. There is also one very carefully choreographed scene where after appearing to Caleb in a woman’s dress and wig, she slowly and seductively removes a piece of hosiery. Did she presume that Caleb was watching, was she continuing her act, her seduction of the miserably confused Caleb, or like the disguised female alien in "Under the Skin" played by Scarlett Johansson, has Ava come to actually think of herself as a woman? (Think about how both films have the nude female alien or robot "admire" or check themselves for errors in the mirror - what is each thinking: I'm beautiful or my disguise is perfect? it is far from clear in either movie.)

There are so many sophisticated topics and they are portrayed so beautifully within “Ex Machina” that it is hard to stop describing them all. For me though, this movie hearkens to the equally brilliant “Under the Skin”. Humans are so programmed by our culture, our childhood, and our genes, that when we see an array of fruit arranged in the shape of a face, we define being mentally sound by our ability to see the face. In “Ex Machina”, Caleb sees very little more than a human woman’s face on the body of a robot, but he evidently and despite his clear intelligence and awareness of the situation, responds only a woman, not to a robot with a human face. He responds as a man. Humans so rarely look past the skin; we so rarely notice the evidence that our eyes and brain could pick up of telling differences from conventional humanity, and we respond as if the alien or robot before us is indeed human. Of course, reacting as humans is yet another big topic: what we do to achieve our ends, what lies we tell, what atrocities we will commit, all with the end goal of achieving our desires. “Ex Machina” explores these topics so deftly, I feel certain it will join “2001” and a few others as a classic example of what science fiction and film can accomplish.

 

Movie Review: "The Imitation Game"

The Imitation Game (2014)

Four and half Stars out of Five

PG-13

Alan Turing: Benedict Cumberbatch

Joan Clarke: Keira Knightly

Hugh Alexander: Matthew Goode

John Cairncross: Allen Leech

Commander Denniston: Charles Dance

Stewart Menzies: Mark Strong

Young Alan Turing: Alex Lawther

Director: Morten Tyldum

Writer: Graham Moore

Book (Alan Turing: The Enigma): Andrew Hodges

Music: Alexandre Desplat

When one talks of Artificial Intelligence, one always hears the name of Alan Turing. Prior to the 2014 movie, “The Imitation Game” and its portrayal of Turing’s contribution during WWII and his later suicide (that may have come from his public exposure as a homosexual), Turing’s question about whether we could tell the difference between machine and human intelligence is a question that has appeared in the contemporary news on multiple occasions. The issue referred to as the “imitation game” by the movie is whether or not a series of questions could be devised by a human that when applied to a machine or human intelligence would reveal their actual identity based on their answers. To date, this has not happened without some extraordinary assistance lent to the machine intelligence being tested. The movie, “The Imitation Game” uses this question of true identity as a clever metaphor for the life and mind of Alan Turing: a gay man hiding in a straight world, or as the movie would also have us believe, as a man with Asperger’s Syndrome (or something similar) trying to live in a world run people not on the Autism spectrum.

The movie as written by Graham Moore (2015 Oscar winner for best adapted screenplay) is told in three interweaving story arcs: 1927 at Turing’s public school, Sherborne; Turing’s years during the war at Bletchley Park as he worked within a cryptographic group for the English; and during a course of several months starting in 1951 as the local police investigate Turing and a robbery at his home. The writer and director (Norwegian director, Morten Tyldum in his first English-language movie) deftly interweave these three separate but linked story lines to build dramatic tension in each. Each arc is brought to its individual climax at similar points in the movie in a manner where each climax heightens and adds to the overall effect: for example, Turing’s homosexual love for his classmate, Christopher is closely followed by a scene during WWII where Turing is shown experiencing difficulties in his adult life as a gay man trying to conceal a sexual orientation that was expressly forbidden by law in the UK.

Turing’s life at Sherborne is shown by the movie to be especially harrowing. That most boys at English public schools have stories of harassment to tell has become a staple of modern fiction, but the life led by young Alan Turing (Alex Lawther) is shown in the movie to be particularly so. Fortunately for young Alan, he has a friend, Christopher. Christopher is shown to be Alan’s only friend and that Alan is especially fond of Christopher, in love with him actually. A key moment in the movie’s progress and in the evolution of young Turing is portrayed when he learns of Christopher’s death from Bovine Tuberculosis (a disease that had as many as 50,000 cases a year in 1930s England). Young Turing expertly played by Lawther struggles to contain his remorse in front of the Headmaster delivering the awful news, but also begins Turing’s lifelong struggle to not only hide his homosexuality but to hide from his membership within the human race. That is humans have feelings and relationships, but “higher beings”, the smartest boy in the class that the other boys only resent for his intelligence, that smart young boy is superior to such feelings; he has no need for them. Turing has pulled himself out of the human race. He justifies his actions at a later point in life by saying; he only works alone, because anyone else would just slow him down.

 The adult Turing is played to extreme perfection by Benedict Cumberbatch. Cumberbatch is one of those rare actors that do not seem to being wearing the clothes of their character, but rather seem to inhabit that character. That the adult Turing is a character is something of an understatement. He is first shown entering the offices of Commander Denniston (played by Game of Thrones alumnus, Charles Dance). In a great scene of clashing egos, Dance channels his best Tywin Lannister haughtiness and Cumberbatch begins to show the arrogance and disconnect from normal human interactions that will plague him throughout his adult life (at least as indicated in the movie). In the scene, Denniston initially rejects Turing’s offer to work for the commander, but Turing then drops the fact that he has deduced Denniston is working on Enigma. Since Engima, the German cryptographic coding machine is a great secret, Turing’s logic in deducing that Denniston and the facility at Bletchley Park are working on it is sufficient evidence of Turing's abilities to convince Denniston to hire Turing.

Turing is introduced to the cryptographic group working on Enigma and he then proceeds to alienate everyone on the team, and to add to the already extant displeasure Denniston feels toward Turing. These poor political/human interactions on Turing’s part ultimately lead to his complete isolation within the group. He has chosen to create from scratch (or so the movie would have us believe) a computer that will resolve the issues the group is having at solving their problems with Enigma. The problem is that each day the Germans change the cipher needed to make the Enigma machine work (the German coding machine for their telecommunications). The rest of the group is trying to manually pound their way through each day to find that cipher; Turing wants his computer to figure it out as he believes the computer will be far faster. However, the computer will be expensive as well as a significant paradigm shift, and Turing is quite incapable of using any political skills in order to build a team or to convince Denniston.  Turing finds an ally in the MI6 agent assigned to Bletchley Park, Stewart Menzies (Mark Strong). The Menzies character is a human Deus Ex Machina for the Turing character. Turing is boxed in and cannot solve the problems of his situation. But the Menzies character sees something in Turing that he likes and he does have the political skill and the actual power to get things done.  The funding is found and Denniston is told to get off Turing’s back.

Turing still needs to add to his team; one of these additions is Joan Clarke (Keira Knightly). The Clarke character is shown to be better at some of the intellectual skills so prized by the Turing character, but also quite capable as functioning as a human. Her introduction as a character is shown on the surface as one more person needing to use subterfuge in order to get through life, but also she is used as a foil to help humanize and explain Turing’s personality disorder. Her problem is one faced by women to this day: in a world run by men, how can a capable woman be allowed to participate, let alone excel at her job. Through Turing’s intervention such a subterfuge is found, and through her influence, he is shown the necessity of at least pretending to be human. Of course, it works for both in the movie: she gets to help solve the Enigma riddle, and he learns a pathway back to humanity; one where he builds the team and the machine he needs to solve Enigma.

The third story arc is the weakest from a dramatic point of view, but excellent at exploring the movie’s best theme: identity. Two policemen investigate a robbery at Turing’s home. Turing won’t cooperate and one of the policemen concludes that Turing is hiding something. This secret turns out to be that Turing is a homosexual. This is illegal in 1950’s England (indeed some 49,000 men and women were convicted of this “crime” over a fifty year period). Turing is sentenced to chemical castration. The effects on his mind and body are shown to be severe. The movies’ final scenes reveal that Turing commits suicide and strongly implies that his act of desperation came as a result of the chemical castration. While there are several historical and medical flaws with this story line, it allows a fictional opportunity for Turing to explain his history and life to the investigating policeman. This was a very clever way to show how Turing, a man described as a monster for his arrogance and indifference to conventional human behavior was a perfect analog for the machine intelligence he was so keen to test with his imitation game. That the historical Turing’s personality was not anything like the disturbed and disassociated genius played by Cumberbatch is not the point. Graham Moore’s screenplay is making an artful metaphor for humankind, and our own perhaps less distinctive personalities, and our own behavior; behavior that too often seems very unhuman.

“The Imitation Game” was nominated for eight Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, and Adapted Screenplay. That it won only Best Adapted Screenplay is something of a shame; I could easily see this movie winning Best Picture. It is the rare picture that won the hearts and minds of both the public and the critics. That the movie has many departures from historical fact is not or should not be an issue. Biopics are not documentaries; they often contain significant amounts of fiction, but also significant amounts of art. “The Imitation Game” may well have completely altered the personalities of Turing and Denniston, the physical attractiveness of Clarke, even the chronology of events and the significance of Turing’s contribution to the Enigma project. The real point of movies such as “The Imitation Game” is not to document Alan Turing’s life, but to draw some deeper meaning from it. And in the case of the persecution of homosexuals, of the behavior of all people (elitists and the average person alike), of the real nature of intelligence in humans, quasi-humans, and machines there is plenty in “The Imitation Game” for every interested mind. This is an excellent movie, easy to watch, and wonderful to experience.