Ex Machina

Rating: 7/10 (26 May 2015)

Absorbing four person act built around Gothic literature tropes (sublime landscape/castle in the mountains/secret rooms/imperiled heroine/rich and perverted madman/monster creation/sexual deviancy etc...) and primarily re-telling the tale of Bluebeard. Upon the invitation of a rich inventor a young man travels to a remote 'castle' in the mountains to study a new human-like machine that has been programmed with an advanced AI. Ultimately he becomes trapped on the external fringes of the civilized world, and psychologically duped by both inventor and robot after the robot annihilates its parent. Exploring discourses on capitalism,technological revolution, male anxiety over female sexuality and the terror awakened by initiative and self-assertion the production is beautifully rendered and the acting convincing but it is essentially an extended 'Bloody Chamber' fan fiction.