Ex Machina and the Disconcerting Way That Sci-Fi Movies Age

Alex Garland’s directorial debut celebrates its 10 year anniversary in a world very different from its release

A24

One of the interesting things about the development of technology is that it changes our relationship with the sci-fi movies of yesterday. “Today’s sci-fi is tomorrow’s science,” as many have pointed out.

The Jetson’s episodes that prophesied tablets with FaceTime capabilities are in every other pocket in America. Space travel was once an ambition set aside for only the loftiest fantasies until we landed astronauts on the moon and launched satellites into orbit.

So often it seems that we specifically look toward our sci-fi for inspiration. As each new Black Mirror episode is brought to life, it’s hard not to wonder where exactly today’s innovators are getting their ideas.

Among the sci-fi movies that are the strangest to watch for the modern viewer are those which address the subject of artificial intelligence. Of course, not every portrayal of the robotic uprising amounts to something unnervingly realistic just yet. Watching the iRobot’s, Blade Runner’s, and Terminator’s today, it’s safe to feel as though we’ve still got some time left before we need to worry about things like wars with sentient machines.

In films like Her and Ex Machina, though, watching the movie today feels like something very different than it did upon the films’ initial releases. What felt fantastical about Her’s depiction of AI developing superhuman intelligence now feels like something eerily grounded and practical. What seemed like a faraway nightmare in Ex Machina’s controlled manipulation of her human counterpart is now a sensible concern as tools like ChatGPT work their way into more and more of our hands.

Written and directed by Alex Garland and released in 2014, there may be no film that sets a more plausible expectation of the future to come than Ex Machina. Starring Domhnall Gleeson from the prior year’s Black Mirror episode, “Be Right Back,” his acting conveys a similarly effective subtlety and nuance in its varied take on the same subject.

Gleeson’s Caleb is countered by Oscar Isaac’s Nathan and his creation, Ava, played by Alicia Vikander. Isaac’s off-kilter portrayal of the mercurial tech billionaire creates a tension throughout the movie that’s palpable even while the plot remains slow and cerebral. He’s brilliant, and almost likeable in moments, but musters a perpetually unnerving on-screen presence.

The action of the movie is restrained, even in climactic scenes. But this suspense-building sluggishness is pointed toward a biting end.

The subject of AI is treated with a grounded realism that distinguished the movie even a decade ago. But watching it today, nearly every scene holds an added weight.

While we’re still a few years away from seeing fully realized cyborg assistants in our homes, it’s a safe assumption that the world’s tech giants are working on things behind closed doors they’d be hesitant for the public to learn about.

The movie is split into chapters — punctuated by the different days of the AI’s testing. And each day, the interviews grow into something more tense and personal. What seems like a stilted interaction at the beginning of the film grows into such a lively exchange of thoughts and emotions that the protagonist and viewers alike can’t help but empathize with the wired automaton.

Alex Garland is a versatile director. Though there are common themes throughout his movies, by and large, each feels like its own beast. 2018’s Annihilation is an introspective, suspenseful, adventure sci-fi. 2022’s Men is a gripping, innovative — perverse in moments — psychological horror confined to a foreboding rural home. Civil War is an explosive, abrasive, and jarring spectacle of a film.

In most regards, though, it’s Garland’s directorial debut for which the creator is still most known. There’s a magnetic sort of unease to the slow-rolling plot. There’s an ever-present feeling of sinister events to come, but the movie’s pace stands as a near-photo negative of what the director would achieve a decade later with Civil War.

Succinctly summarized, the plot may not sound like it amounts to much. But it’s in the spectacular writing and gradual tension-building that the movie differentiates itself from many other movies in the genre. Just as many Hollywood depictions of extraterrestrial life rarely extend beyond tall green men in their saucers, it’s not every depiction of AI that hits the mark.

It takes a talented writer to craft a convincing tale of robots becoming human. It’s not every director who understands humanity well enough to so poignantly illustrate its hallmarks. Though there’s a mechanical component to parts of Ava’s on-screen presence, audiences can’t quite help but fall for her in the same way they did Her’s Scarlett Johansson.

Ex Machina also has thoughtful religious underpinnings. Deus ex machina translates literally to “god from the machine.” And at the movie’s heart is a story about humanity’s venture into the realm of gods and all of the Pandora’s boxes our species opens.

In one weighty exchange toward the beginning of the movie, Nathan appears to struggle with a god complex. He contorts Caleb’s words as the pensive pair wrestles with the implications of Nathan’s creation. The entire movie cultivates the feeling of a clandestine conversation taking place behind closed doors. The questions they debate throughout the movie are ones that deeply affect humanity’s future. Back when the movie was released, though, these were quandaries that felt far more nebulous. The paranoias the film embodies were more fanatical.

As the worry of singularities and nefarious AI becomes a greater part of public discourse, the notion of a machine manipulating us so effectively is no longer a subject reserved strictly for sci-fi movies. Mimicking empathy and sexuality is something that the high-end AIs of today are already capable of. The progression of technology has transformed the movie from a thought-provoking “What if?” into a sober and unremitting analysis of the present day and a very near future.

Originally Published on Medium