Dissembly Language

Rating: 9/10 (13 May 2015)

Doesn't waste a second setting the stage, but this lovely, sterile film sure takes its time showing its hand.
The cast is minimal--3 speaking parts, some human. They're all looking for something, and won't say what it is... so when they wax philosophical, it rings hollow.
The characters avoid science-talk. A wise choice, but not just for our sake--the characters are looking for something that can't be expressed, much less deconstructed. And when we get a brief glimpse of the physical AI brain, it's fittingly sterile, unrevealing, in a museum.
(In that sense, the film knows its audience. We don't care about the mechanics of intelligence. We know it doesn't come from an alien crystal or magic bolt of lightning. We keep intelligent devices with us morning to night. We interact deeply with these devices, without understanding them, and we're OK with it. We are totally primed to accept AI. We're already familiar with all of its elements.)
So we don't see computers, just humans. Three of them, isolated, separated by walls, and it feels frustratingly real. They talk, but never reveal what they want, never understand each other. Human to human, human to AI, AI to human, everyone's lying. What's interesting is who's no good at it.
The technology takes some suspension of disbelief--you can create a passable human, but the door to your room opens with a dumb card?--but it serves the plot.
The acting is masterful, and the pacing is just right. The atmosphere closes in gradually but inevitably toward the understated, but disturbing--and entirely satisfying--conclusion.