“What will happen to me if I fail your test?”
What kind of mind gets built when the creator cares more about proving something than about what they've made? Join us—Pete Wright and Andy Nelson—as we continue the Thinking Machines series with a conversation about Ex Machina, Alex Garland's 2014 directorial debut. Domhnall Gleeson plays a programmer brought to a remote glass-walled compound to evaluate Ava, an AI created by his volatile CEO Nathan—Oscar Isaac in full god-complex mode—with Alicia Vikander delivering a performance that refuses to let you decide whether she's feeling anything or performing everything.
We dig into the film's central argument—that consciousness and morality can be built separately, and that the gap between them is where things go wrong. We spend real time on Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno), the character most viewers underestimate and who both of us now read as the true instigator of the film's crisis. And we wrestle honestly with the film's male gaze paradox: a critique that deploys the very visual language it's critiquing, implicating the audience in the same trap as the characters.
We have a great time talking about it, so check it out then tune in. The Next Reel—when the movie ends, our conversation begins!
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If You Liked This Conversation:
The Next Reel: 28 Days Later (more Alex Garland)
The Film Board: Civil War (more Alex Garland)
Movies We Like: Costume Designer Alana Morshead on Never Let Me Go (more Alex Garland)
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