Ex Machina

I adore this movie. Well done, old-school humanist, character-driven sci fi. There’s like three characters in the whole movie, a lot of talk and very little action, qualities some other quiet “thrillers” I’m particularly fond of (such as The Vast Of Night and The Invitation) share, when they’re well-made enough to carry it along on that.

In this, a programmer wins a chance to spend a few days with the reclusive head of his company in his isolated retreat, where it turns out he has built an artificial (and, in some lovely FX work, visually clearly robotic, except for the face) woman. The programmer has been called there to interact with her and determine whether he feels she is genuinely conscious and intelligent. That short synopsis doesn’t really do it justice, but to say more would be to rob anyone reading of the experience of going into this cold and letting the story unfold.