Alex Garland is in wonderland as director of Ex Machina

After breaking through with The Beach, Alex Garland has swapped the pen for the director’s chair on Ex Machina, writes Ed Power

ALEX Garland refuses to bask in the moment. The novelist-turned-screenwriter has directed his first movie, a dystopian morality play, entitled Ex Machina. He is no longer a background toiler. He is calling the shots, but he’s not presumptuous about it.

“There’s a tendency to overstate the importance of the director,” he says, flatly. “I know it sounds very self-effacing. Honestly, it’s quite true. I don’t put the emphasis on directing that you are supposed to. It doesn’t really marry with my experience. Filmmaking, so far as I can tell, is a collaboration between a large group of people.”