To be human

Rating: 5/10 (8 February 2016)

Writer Alex Garland makes his directorial début in this low budget independent feature. Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a top notch but geeky computer programmer who has won a competition to spend a week at an isolated retreat of reclusive, eccentric and wealthy AI engineer Nathan (Oscar Isaac.)
Caleb's job is to evaluate by running certain tests on the robot Ava (Alicia Vikander) to determine whether she has human consciousness.
Caleb and Nathan party, they drink, they dance but Nathan has also set down some ground rules and when he is testing Ava he is always watched and heard.
What emerges is a game of cat and mouse as Ava engineers power outages to speak with Caleb alone and without Nathan able to see or hear them. Caleb is enchanted by Ava but there is a suspicion that Ava might be manipulating him. Vikander brings an intriguing and sensual performance.
As for Nathan the way Isaac plays him here is a larger than life character but there is a dark underbelly, you always sense the beast within him will unleash at any moment. Yet there is a great physicality Isaac brings to the character like the way he moves and dances.
Gleeson has to draw in the audience in as the every-geek, kind of wide eyed at first at this remote mountain hideout hanging around with a wealthy recluse but drawn in by Eva and slowly repelled by Nathan but he might just be too gullible because he never really asks any smart questions.
The film goes back to a lot of robot/AI tropes that go back to the days of Isaac Asimov. In that sense it is as not original but Garland does give it an effective twist but I never felt it always engaged and hence why Garland added so many nudebots to keep the audience interested.