Disturbingly beautiful

Rating: 9/10 (18 May 2015)

Ex Machina is Alex Garland's directorial debut, dealing with artificial intelligence and, perhaps, man playing god.
The movie stars Domhnall Gleeson as Caleb - an awkward yet smart coder working for Blue Book, the world's leading search engine. Caleb wins a week-long trip to his boss's, Nathan's (Oscar Isaac), residence to test the AI he's been working on. Caleb is supposed to perform the Turing test on Ava (Alicia Vikander), a scientific breakthrough, an artificial human.
The plot is seemingly shallow, but it has a lot of philosophical aspects and references to mythology and famous theories on the ethics of science. Although it may now seem that we're years away from developing an authentic AI, this movie examines one of the biggest ethical problems about science and the history of mankind - what makes us human? If we were to build a machine that works exactly like a human, would it really be human?
I found myself feeling sorry for Ava. She lives in a windowless room and she is constantly the subject of different tests. Even though the movie clearly portraits her as a machine, Ava feels and sounds like a human being. I felt sorry for Ava and hoped that her's and Caleb's love would bloom, but at the same time the whole thing felt utterly disturbing and unnatural.
This is what makes Ex Machina so genius. Ex Machina is a quiet, distressing, beautiful and unique movie. The dialogs feel real and the acting is done flawlessly. Ex Machina makes one really ponder the consequences and ethics of artificial intelligence and the basic nature of man. Hauntingly brilliant, Ex Machina is a modern sci-fi classic.