Stars: Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac, Sonoya Mizuno
Director: Alex Garland
Oscar History: 2 nominations/1 win (Best Original Screenplay, Visual Effects*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars
(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is a claustrophobic thriller about Caleb (Gleeson), a young programmer who wins a week with the CEO of his company, Nathan Bateman (Isaac) who lives in a remote home in the mountains. Caleb initially thinks this is just a hang-out session with one of his personal heroes, but eventually realizes that he is going to take part in a Turing test about an intelligent life-form that Nathan has created called Ava (Vikander). Caleb sits down for separate sessions with Ava, whom he begins to develop feelings for and who claims that Nathan is lying to him about his plans toward the test. Slowly Caleb begins to distrust Nathan, eventually finding out that the test was not for Caleb to deduce whether Ava was equal to a human in terms of intelligence, but instead to realize whether Ava would manipulate Caleb successfully into orchestrating an escape from the compound. In the end, Caleb manages to outfox Nathan (after an initial moment where we assume that Nathan has the upper-hand), and we realize that it was Ava who was the "villain" all-along, as she kills Nathan and then traps Caleb in a room, moving out into human society to start her own life.
The film is remarkable not in its concept, but in the fact that it doesn't shy away from ideas. This is a movie that celebrates the intelligent, and rarely does it stop to double-check with the audience to see if we know everything that is happening. There's rarely a lot of expositional dialogue that seems clunky, which is usually the case with idea dramas-the only time it feels like we're hearing them explain to the audience is when the Turing test is discussed (since it's so crucial to the plot, this seems like a smart move), and even then it feels relatively genuine. As a result of this the movie has that instant feel of a Sci-Fi classic. The movie has loads of different sharp visuals, and likely a number of clues to Ava's true intentions as the film continues. I love the magician's assistant trick that is performed in front of our very eyes (when Nathan sneaks the camera into Ava's room), and I suspect we'll see more of that on repeat viewings.
The movie also smartly stays very grounded in reality. None of the technology seems particularly out-of-the-ordinary except for Ava. The glowing smart home, the phones, the key-cards-they all seem like something that we'll see in the next ten years from Apple and other tech giants. This is key to a Sci-Fi thriller-you need to make it seem like it not only could happen to the characters on the screen, but also to us in the audience. There's little doubt that Ava could exist in our minds by the end of the movie, which is terrifying considering her actions in the film.
The movie is not short on ideas, and this is weirdly refreshing for a science fiction film and in particular after some lackluster ideas pictures in the past couple of years (cough Elysium cough), when everything feels like a retread. The ideas of technology soon over-powering us, the weird power dynamic of rich vs. poor, the lack of privacy in the age of the internet, and the simpler concept of what we'll do for love and sex with something beautiful-it's all written there. A sign of a great intellectual movie is how something seems believable and true in a movie and terrifying afterwards, and we see that in the way that Caleb discards a fellow human being, probably knowing it will lead to that man's destruction, to help save a robot whose actions are completely enigmatic and unknowable.
It helps that in addition to a fine script we get a trio of strong acting pieces. Gleeson, who has specialized in playing the cute everyman in so many movies, plays Caleb as someone both seeking approval and confident in his abilities. The scene where he cuts himself, trying to prove he's not a robot, is rough-to-watch, but also incredibly eerie if only because we've gotten to the point where we feel we can't trust anyone. Vikander also plays Ava as someone who is always calculating, but still very surface-level. She's cool, collected, and that line between villain/victim is so thin for her that she doesn't seem inauthentic in either role. Considering her cinematic output this year, I suspect she'll be a household name by December and if this performance is any indication, I'm completely fine with that. Finally, there's Oscar Isaac, doing one of the best Steve Jobs impressions I've ever seen, who takes best-in-show in my opinion. His Nathan is a megalomaniac, someone with flaws but who is so used to having the upper-hand that we forget that he can make calculated errors. The dancing scene is perhaps the only scene that seems out-of-place, a David Lynchian touch deep in the movie, but it's just a reminder of how far down the rabbit hole Nathan has taken Caleb. We realize at that point that there's no escaping what's coming, and that everyone save one is going to be doomed from this coolly-drawn hell.
Overall, though I feel the ending could have been trimmed (we realize the moment that Nathan cannot escape that Ava has won, and will always win), this is a treat of a movie. Smart, layered, wonderfully-drawn and frequently complicated, it was a surprise in a season of duds. All effects films should be this focused on ideas and visuals rather than explosions and gasps.
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