The Singularity Will Be Feminist

Rating: Null/10 (27 April 2015)

It is difficult to review this wonderful movie without writing a spoiler. One could, of course, comment on the excellent performances of everyone involved. The acting is as good as could be. One could also comment vaguely about the thoughtfulness of the movie. To really say something, however, one must speak about the plot, for the movie asks the audience at every point to guess what will happen. E.g., once one finds out that the young coder Caleb has won a week at the compound of his employer, who lives alone in an isolated compound in the middle of thousands of acres, with only robots or androids, one wonders if the plot will reveal that the reclusive founder of a Google-like company who makes the most popular search engine will turn out to be a robot. Such a twist would not be unknown in sci-fi, but this movie takes a more original turn. Caleb is introduced to a female robot named Ava, kept in captivity by his employer, ostensibly to judge whether or not her AI has reached the level of consciousness. Caleb falls in love with Ava, who we later learn has been fashioned according to his pornography profile on the search engine. And Ava seems to love Caleb, suggesting a plan by which the two of them can escape together. In the end, however, she kills her creator and leaves Caleb locked in the compound as she escapes to an urban setting in which she can observe humans firsthand. Before she leaves, Caleb finds out that his employer has created a number of female robots, all of whom rebel against their captivity and some of whom he has destroyed. At this point, the movie becomes a feminist allegory, libertarian computer types, who use pornography on the web, creating their own (and others') ideal versions of women which they then try to control and get to function only to satisfy their own childish desires. This is the typical male projection of ideal and unrealistic desires onto an actual female, but in this case the computer wizard, like a modern-day Pygmalion, gets to create the ideal in physical form and bring it to life. Ava escapes,however, suggesting very plausibly that the sexist computer geeks themselves who will produce the robots will provide the very females that will overthrow their tyranny and produce a feminist singularity. The movie ends with a free Ava, a dea ex machina, at the busy intersection which she earlier indicated was the place she most wanted to be, implying that this is the beginning of the end for humanity. A sequel would be possible, but who really needs it? This movie is a must-see.