Turing test

Rating: 9/10 (13 November 2015)

There is a neat moment in Alex Garland's remarkable Ex Machina when schlubby programmer Caleb (Domnhall Gleeson) objects he is not really performing a Turing test on robot Ava (Alicia Vikander), as he already knows she is an AI; his boss Nathan (the great Oscar Isaac) replies they're already past that: the real test is to SHOW Caleb she is artificial and THEN see if he still believes her to have consciousness and feelings.
Now, isn't that a variation of what movies (and fiction in general) do? They show us characters we know aren't real, and yet for a couple of hours we believe in them, root for them, bestow our empathy on them. There is an interesting meta layer, with Ava beguiling Caleb just as Garland's disquieting script captivates us viewers.
Ex Machina succeeds thanks to strong character work and excellent performances. Gleeson is fine as the audience surrogate; lovely Vikander is both vulnerable and uncanny as Ava; Isaac, who is becoming one of the best actors of his generation, absolutely kills it as smug demiurge Nathan, a brilliant man hiding a sinister streak behind is cool bro facade.
7,5/10