Ex Machina Review
Alex Garland is a name you should recognise. He first came to prominence at the age of just 26 when his first novel, The Beach, become an international sensation. It spawned a 2000 film by Danny Boyle which was a huge box office draw, kicking of a collaboration between Boyle and Garland which resulted in 28 Days Later and perhaps Boyle’s masterpiece, Sunshine.Garland has also scripted the adaptation of Never Let Me Go and the viciously vivid Dredd. And now he’s set to conquer a new frontier with his first film as writer and director – Ex Machina.I’ve long followed his career and Ex Machina is the logical next step for the 44 year old Englishman, especially after rumours of his heavy involvement with the filming of Dredd in 2012. It’s also a film which expands on his particularly brand of intense situations, bleeding edge tech and the wavering edges of fear.Ex Machina is a sterling example of the sci-fi form, and a more distilled version that we’ve seen for many a year. With fairly conventional framing and filmmaking (certainly lacking the overbearing style Boyle would have brought to the piece) Garland sets up a quandary for the audience, and then explores it to the edge of rationality and reason, and then beyond.After an extremely efficient opening we’re thrown into a world with only 3 main characters, trapped in an isolated location where events will unspool over the course of the week. These elements are no doubt partly concessions to the rather modest budget (around $20 million) but also make for a more compelling picture. There are no distractions, no cross-cutting to another group or extraneous action. It’s all laid bare.It has to be said that Ex Machina is very much a talky film, it’s layered with deep and dense dialogue, centred on a series of engagements between the wide-eyed coder played by Domhnall Gleeson and Ava – a humanoid robot embodied by Alicia Vikander. There are thriller, mystery and even horror elements at play but the real action occurs in their exchanges, and the post-mortems with Gleeson’s mercurial boss Oscar Isaac.The scale of the film means there’s a lot of pressure on these three performers and they’re truly terrific. Gleeson’s is the least showy role but he’s a perfect foil to both Isaac and Vikander – reflecting the audience thrust into this incredible set-up. It’s a part that becomes more complex as the film unfolds and he does a wonderful job selling each twist and turn.
