A Revelation

Rating: 8/10 (1 November 2019)

This movie was a revelation to me, the first time I saw it. A little less so the second but it still belongs in the pantheon of modern sci-fi instant classics, if you ask me.
First off, it is beautifully shot. This is remarkable since the film essentially takes place in an underground bunker. Avoiding a totally claustrophobic and dark ambiance settling over the entire film must have been a challenge but just as the film never relents from delving deeper into the psyche of the characters and their environs, it also comes up for air, both in setting and in humor, often enough that the film doesn't feel boxed in by a single location budget.
Another true delight of the film is the character of Ava (Alicia Vikander, "Tomb Raider"), an A. I. of which, Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi") is tasked with determining its potential sentience. The performance is fantastic and perfect for a movie in which the desired effect is for the audience to be constantly between the place of believing in its humanity as well as disbelieving. Questions of whether it is mimicking emotion or genuinely feeling emotion are consistently muddied by a performance that feel both human and non human at almost every turn.
On top of the performance, the visual effects are seamless. I could go on and on about how good they are but rather than do that, I'll link to a video with some VFX artists talking about how amazing the effects are, especially considering the shoe string budget this movie was shot on.
On top of Vikander's portrayal of Ava, Oscar Isaac as Nathan and Domhnall Gleeson's Caleb are simply phenomenal, playing multiple levels of trust and distrust in order to bring top life the mental game spy vs spy vs spy that this movie ultimately turns into.
With all that preliminary out of the way, let's get into what really makes this film shine. The story.
The film opens with Caleb being awarded a week long stay with this universe's version of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, all rolled into one, Nathan. Once he gets to Nathan's estate he finds out that he is also being given the opportunity to take place in a Turing Test (a test to determine the sentience of an artificial intelligence). He will conduct a series of interviews with Ava, the A. I. in question, and hopefully determine if Nathan has truly created the first of a new life form.
As he does this, the director, Alex Garland ("Annihilation") does a brilliant job of unfolding for the audience the degree to which this would be a challenge. We get scenes which help us feel the difference between mimicry and the real thing as well as see the effect this sort of rigorous testing and questioning might have on a new life form as they seek to understand the very limited world that has been made available to them.
I keep coming back to the idea of being multi-layered. That's what this movie is and does a skillful job of unfolding for the viewer in a way that doesn't seem heavy handed or to much like a spoon feeding. This is remarkable because this is a film that is mostly scenes of two people talking to each other. Despite this, it never feel dull or slow moving.
The dialogue is written with subtext under subtext so that every conversation contains revelations that seem to turn the reality of these people's relationships on their head, just to get flipped again in the next conversation. This back and forth gives a film of simple conversations, one after another, the feeling of a taught thriller which glues you to the edge of your seat.
It's hard for me to emphasize enough how highly I recommend this film. It is everything that is best about Sci Fi films. People think Sci Fi is about lasers and space ships when, at its best, it is about humanity and the things that are true yesterday, today, and 1,000 years in the future. It's about understanding who we are and where we are going and that is exactly why this movie will be a mainstay in my collection for years to come.