Ex Machina
The directorial debut for Alex Garland announces him as just as talented behind the camera as he is behind the keyboard
Directed By: Alex Garland
Other Notable Films From Garland: Annihilation, Civil War, Warfare
Starring: Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac
Screenplay By: Alex Garland
Movie Synopsis: A tech billionaire tests whether his artificially intelligent robot can convince a computer programmer that it’s conscious.
Signature Line: “I’m gonna tear up the fucking dance floor, dude, check it out.”
THE INTRODUCTION
An accounting of time, and people, and context
Let’s begin with this, which is my favorite observation of what makes Oscar Isaac’s performance as Nathan Bateman, a reclusive and egotistical billionaire tech genius in Ex Machina, so hypnotic. It comes from Alex Garland, the film’s writer and director:
“Oscar’s character is very, very front foot. Aggressive to the point of bullying. Witty. Cruel. And very, very, very clever. … The job there, I suppose, is to be able to play that part without turning him into a Bond villain, you know? It’s very easy with a character that is smart and sinister to start caricaturing himself. Oscar’s just way too smart to do that.”
I love that as a synopsis.1 It pinpoints exactly the foundation of the Nathan character, which is to say: he’s a person defined by nuanced contradictions; he’s threatening without ever being cartoonishly evil, charming without ever being truly warm, and unsettling without ever being baseless.
But what I find most interesting about Garland’s quote is that it doesn’t just apply to Isaac as an actor; it extends to the whole movie.
Ex Machina is remarkable in a lot of ways, not the least of which is its ability to wring tension out of basically every moment. And the reason it can do that is because it never allows you to situate yourself comfortably within a scene. You’re made to feel constantly off balance, be it by the unexpected turn a conversation takes between two characters, or the slow swelling of the score, or a look held too long, or even the camera’s slow push into a frame.
The film could’ve tripped over itself at any number of points in an effort to show you how intellectual it was, or how conceptual it was, or how theoretical it was, or how philosophical it was.
But it never sacrifices artistry for blunt provocation.
Because the movie, much like Isaac, is way too smart to do that.
THE VIEWING
A timestamped rewatch of Ex Machina
0:04: This logo popping up before a movie starts is how you know you’re in for a fucking ride. You could watch a guy kidnap another guy and perform a bunch of medical procedures on him to turn him into a walrus (Tusk). Or you could watch a guy find a very flatulent corpse and then ride it around in the ocean like a fart-powered jet ski (Swiss Army Man). Or it could just be a movie where a guy takes some phone calls while he’s in a car for 85 minutes (Locke). Literally everything is in play.
1:49: Domhnall Gleeson is here. He plays Caleb Smith, a computer programmer who wins the chance to visit the compound of a reclusive billionaire. There are three main speaking roles in Ex Machina—Gleeson as Caleb, Oscar Isaac as the billionaire, and Alicia Vikander as a robot named Ava—and each actor gives what could legitimately be argued as the best performance of their career. It’s just heat across the board for the entirety of the movie.
2:50: A helicopter pilot just dropped Caleb off in the wilderness. When Caleb asks how he’s supposed to get Nathan’s compound, the pilot responds, “Follow the river.” Bitch, what???? FOLLOW THE RIVER?! Those are your directions???? This ain’t Alone, hoe. I need actual instructions. A GPS device. A physical map. An escort. SOMETHING. If that would’ve been me right there, this movie would’ve been three minutes long. That pilot would’ve dropped me off, I’d have asked for directions, he’d have said “Follow the river,” and then I would’ve been like, “Fuck you, how about that? Take me home,” and then I’d have climbed back into the helicopter. End credits.
5:40: I know that this is a research facility and not a house, but this is basically exactly what my dream house is. Beautiful, minimalist, completely secluded. It’s a perfect setup. The older I get, the more I wanna just disappear into the wilderness. The only thing that’s stopping me from doing that is that I can’t grow a beard. I feel like if you’re an I LIVE IN THE WILDERNESS guy, you gotta have a beard.
6:36: Oscar Isaac is here. He plays Nathan, the billionaire CEO of a Google-like company called Blue Book. I’m a big, big Oscar Isaac fan. He’s one of my favorite actors working. I love him in this role. I’m a sucker for the I’M SMARTER THAN YOU ARE AND I KNOW IT character archetype, and I’m especially a sucker for that archetype when it’s being played by the most handsome man on the planet.
6:37: P.S. Whenever I’m at the house and Larami is out somewhere, a few minutes before she gets home, I start doing something that I want her to walk in and see me doing (like, say, reading a book, or taking out the trash, or doing push-ups and loudly counting out the numbers, etc). The reason I do that is because I think if she sees me doing those things it’ll make her like me more. And, I mean, obviously that’s a very dumb thing. I know that my wife seeing me read a book or whatever other “candid” activity has no real effect on how she feels about me. I KNOW that. But I still do it, because I’m a 44-year-old 15-year-old.
Anyway, I bring that up right now because: That’s what popped into my head the first time I watched Ex Machina and saw Caleb arrive at Nathan's compound to find Nathan outside punching a heavy bag. I am 100 percent certain that Nathan planned it to happen that way. He wanted Caleb to see him doing that. He wanted Caleb to know that not only is he outmatched intellectually, but he’s also outmatched physically.
7:47: Most of the subterranean stuff in Ex Machina (like the room that Caleb stays in during his week-long stay with Nathan) was built on soundstages in England. All the outdoor-facing stuff was real, though, with the bulk of it set in the Juvet Landscape Hotel, a series of glass-walled cabins built into the steep landscape of Norway’s northwest coast.
9:50: Nathan wants Caleb to sign an NDA before he’ll tell him about the very secret (and potentially Earth-altering) project he’s been working on. While trying to convince Caleb to sign, he says, “It’s standard.” Four years before starring in Ex Machina, Oscar Isaac had a small role in the action drama Drive. His character’s name in that? Standard Gabriel. That mean right here it’s Standard saying “it’s standard.”
11:15: Nathan’s laying out what amounts to the plot of the movie: He built an artificially intelligent robot and he wants to run a Turing Test on it with Caleb.2 This is a great piece of the exchange, which sets up the stakes of the moment:
Caleb (realizing): Are you building an A.I.?
Nathan: I’ve already built one. And over the next few days, you’re gonna be the human component in the Turing Test.
Caleb: Holy shit.
Nathan: Yeah, that’s right, Caleb. You got it. Because if that test is passed, you are dead center of the greatest scientific event in the history of man.
Caleb: If you’ve created a conscious machine, it’s not the history of man… That’s the history of gods.
I love this movie so much.3
11:34: Just incredible work by cinematographer Rod Hardy here. It’s very easy to see why Garland called his number so many times after working with him on Ex Machina. (Hardy also did the cinematography for Garland’s Annihilation in 2018, Men in 2022, and Civil War in 2024.)
12:47: Alicia Vikander is here. She plays Ava, the artificially intelligent robot that Nathan created. Vikander is so fucking good in this role. She was so effective at playing a robot that when I see her in other stuff I’m still kinda like… [picture me squinting my eyes a little and cocking my head slightly to the side like I’m trying to see through a ruse].
17:20: Oscar Isaac is hot in every movie, but he’s especially hot in this one. The OSCAR ISAAC MOVIE ROLE HOTNESS podium:
The honorable mention spot goes to his hotness as Duke Leto Atreides in Dune (in particular, the scene where he puts on his armor).
The bronze medal spot goes to his hotness as Santiago “Pope” Garcia in Triple Frontier (in particular, the scene where he’s riding on the truck with the camera zoomed in real tight on his face).
The silver medal spot goes to his hotness as Abel Morales in A Most Violent Year (in particular, the scene where he’s at dinner talking about how being afraid of something is the reason you should do it).
