The best interviews are the interviews were I hardly even have to look at my notes, the questions come easily and the conversation flows as if we’re both on the exact same page. Such was the case with my brief, but incredibly fun interview with writer/director Alex Garland whose feature directorial debut, Ex Machina, is in theaters now and it packs a sci-fi wallop with plenty of room for post-screening discussion and we only skim the tip of the iceberg in the following chat.
To put it simply, Ex Machina centers on a young programmer (Domhnall Gleeson) chosen to participate in a Turing test for the eccentric Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac), CEO of a tech giant that has just made a significant breakthrough in the realm of artificial intelligence, her name is Ava (Alicia Vikander).
Garland and I discuss the story’s origins, whether it’s fear or hope we see in the idea of the singularity and conscious A.I. and whether it’s even A.I. we should be most concerned about.
If you haven’t yet read my review of Ex Machina you can do so right here, here’s a snippet just to give you a taste of my love for this movie.
The singularity has become the biggest source of fear for sci-fi films as of late. Just recently we’ve had Transcendence, Lucy, Her and Chappie and in less than a month from now, Avengers: Age of Ultron. But before the comic book herd gets its fill Alex Garland‘s feature directorial debut Ex Machina arrives as one of the most cerebral portrayals yet, from both a logical and emotional perspective. It delves into the excitement of creating an artificial piece of intelligence that could manage to convince us it’s human as well as the fear of what might happen if not only we begin to believe it’s human, but mostly what if it begins to believe and, more than just believing, what if it begins to fear for its own survival?
Listen to the interview directly below.
Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a programmer at an internet-search giant, wins a competition to spend a week at the private mountain estate of the company’s brilliant and reclusive CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). Upon his arrival, Caleb learns that Nathan has chosen him to be the human component in a Turing Test–charging him with evaluating the capabilities, and ultimately the consciousness, of Nathan’s latest experiment in artificial intelligence. That experiment is Ava (Alicia Vikander), a breathtaking A.I. whose emotional intelligence proves more sophisticated, seductive–and more deceptive–than the two men could have imagined.
Written and directed by Alex Garland
Starring: Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, Alicia Vikander and Corey Johnson
