Director
Alex Garland
Leading Actors/Actresses
Domhnall Gleeson
Supporting Actors/Actresses
Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander
Genre
Science Fiction, Thriller, Suspense, Drama
Language
English
Awards
Ex Machina was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Garland and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects
Date of Release
April 10th, 2015
Producer
Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich
Setting and Context
Nathan's home, location unknown
Narrator and Point of View
No narrator, but primarily seen from Caleb's point of view
Tone and Mood
Unsettling, Futuristic, Suspenseful, Thought-provoking, Uncanny
Protagonist and Antagonist
Caleb is the protagonist. For most of the film, Nathan is the antagonist, but then Ava is revealed to be the real antagonist.
Major Conflict
At first, the conflict appears to be Nathan's abuse of Ava and Caleb's desire to free Ava from the exploitation of her maker. At the end, however, we learn that Nathan has actually been testing to see if Ava can manipulate Caleb, which she has. The conflict of the ending becomes the effort to keep Ava in captivity so that she does not break out into the human world and wreak havoc (due to her inability to feel empathy or emotion).
Climax
When Ava escapes the compound, killing Nathan in the process.
Foreshadowing
Kyoko's reveal as a robot is foreshadowed by the fact that she's treated so poorly and inhumanely by Nathan. Nathan's sexual mistreatment of the robots is foreshadowed by the way he talks about Ava in a sexual manner.
Understatement
Innovations in Filming or Lighting or Camera Techniques
Allusions
The title is an allusion to deus ex machina a traditional literary device (meaning, in Latin, "God from the machine") in which a god or a spirit appears in the eleventh hour of a narrative to wrap up loose ends.
Throughout there are ambiguous allusions to spirituality, religion, and the idea of creation.
Paradox
Ava is herself a paradox, in that she easily can pass the Turing Test, and yet Caleb and the viewer remain unsure of whether she is actually capable of human emotion.
Parallelism
Ava's manipulation of Caleb is based on a parallel she draws between the two of them as misunderstood outsiders.
