EX MACHINA

Director: Alex Garland

2015, 110min., R

Cast: Oscar Isaac, Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, Corey Johnson, Deborah Rosan, Sonoya Mizuno, Symara A. Templeman, Elina Alminas

 

It seems like the blink of an eye between Alan Turning developing a proto-computer that could communicate with another machine (seen onscreen in The Imitation Game), to Ex Machina, where a young man tries to explore the consciousness of a computer in the form of a human. Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson (Never Let Me Go, Calvary) stars as the coder who wins a competition awarding him the chance to spend a week at the estate of his company’s brilliant CEO (Oscar Isaac of Inside Llewyn Davis). His challenge: to explore the mind and emotions of a new android (Alicia Vikander), whose intelligence is much more than “artificial.” “Alex Garland (who wrote 28 Days) makes an impressive debut as a director, spinning an unsettling futuristic thriller with expertise and exquisite taste…” Ann Hornaday, Washington Post.