History Film / ExMachina

** For a softer example, there's the scene where [[spoiler:Ava pieces together a new synthetic skin from parts of old android, leaving her with a fully realistic (nude) human body.]] Because of the context, the scene comes off as more poignant than erotic.

** The cracked glass in the room that Caleb uses to interact with Ava. [[spoiler:When Caleb watches the video recordings of the previous gynoid models, there's a recording of Nathan interviewing Jade who wants to get out but he refuses and she bashes the glass in anger]].
** One of the lyrics of the song that plays in the dance scene is "work your fingers to the bone". Later when Caleb [[spoiler:watches the video of Jade banging her arms on the door, her ''fingers'' are the first to disintegrate. Additionally, her ''arms are worked to the bone'']].

** The film explains how a Turing Test works, only to then start the very first session that goes against the most basic rule of such a test. Which is even invoked in-universe by Caleb. [[spoiler: It's the first hint Nathan isn't just doing some basic test and instead deliberately is trying to evoke specific reactions from Caleb]].

** Nathan orchestrates all three, by bringing Caleb to his home under false pretenses so that Caleb can administer a TuringTest on Ava. [[spoiler:Which is ''further'' false pretenses, as Nathan was trying to see if Ava could utilize a whole suite of human attributes to successfully manipulate Caleb as a part of a larger, more elaborate and comprehensive Turing test of Ava's sapience. Once she proved it, Nathan could force Caleb to leave his estate and he would reboot Ava into the next iteration, effectively killing her current iteration]].

* HopeSpot: [[spoiler:Just when you think Ava's dressing herself in skin and a nice dress and is now going to go surprise Caleb with it and run away with him - she doesn't. Instead she leaves him trapped in Nathan's compound - presumably till he eventually dies]].

** [[spoiler: None of the bots comes with a remote way to turn them off or any other fail-safe mechanism. Since Caleb didn't have to know about it existing, it makes it even more questionable why Nathan didn't prepare for such an obvious possibility, since his test was all about letting Ava escape, with no way to turn her off in case of success]].

* InTheBack: [[spoiler:Kyoko attacks Nathan from behind while he was busy keeping Ava in check]].

* JustAMachine: [[spoiler:Nathan ultimately shows no empathy towards his creations; whatever pride he may have in them, he clearly thinks nothing of repeatedly dismantling them and starting over]]. Caleb does, although his motives are a little ambiguous. In the end, [[spoiler: Ava (apparently taking the attitude of Just a Human) leaves them both behind to die.]]

* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: [[spoiler:Caleb helps Ava escape but, without a second thought, she leaves him behind to die a slow, agonizing death by starvation in the compound]].

* RidiculouslyHumanRobots: Nathan's goal is to create robots based on Ava that could pass as human if they were made to look like people. Ava walks and moves in a lifelike manner, and has been obsessively designed to read and express emotions naturally with her face and body. [[spoiler:Kyoko actually manages to fool Caleb, although she apparently cannot speak]]. Nathan justifies this as a necessity. An A.I. with no form or one merely designed for practicality (a box, for example) would have no reason to relate to a human.

* RoboticReveal: [[spoiler:Kyoko reveals to Ava (albeit indirectly) that she is also an A.I., albeit less advanced than Ava]].

* TuringTest: The whole point of Caleb's presence. He points out that, traditionally, he shouldn't ''know'' Ava is artificial. Nathan dismisses this, claiming that Ava would easily pass if they were in separate rooms. The real test is if Caleb can come to see her as conscious while knowing she's a machine. [[spoiler:Actually, it's to see if she can convince him to help her escape, which would be the ultimate test of her abilities]]. [[spoiler:It is also reminiscent of the AI-Box experiment in which an AI with limited input and output has to convince a human "Gatekeeper" to release it into the world]].

** Kyoko's lack of vocalization is also rather disconcerting. [[spoiler:When she starts peeling the skin off of her face, it gets ''really'' disturbing]].
** Ava [[spoiler:had several predecessors, all of whom were nude in their flashback footage. One had a time-lapse of being built up from a pair of legs, section by section, then doing a SexyWalk, which dives right into FanDisservice. Another, we see as a completely skinned woman minus the metal skull and neck vertebrae; Nathan dragging around her lifeless body like a corpse was...creepy]]. Another one, [[spoiler:apparently "Jade", was being interviewed by Nathan and demanding to be let out in her concurrent interviews, until she was clearly desperate and panicked. Her footage ended on her having a FreakOut and battering at the door until her arms disintegrated and eventually gave up, crying. Had she been human, her hands and forearms would have been worn down ''to the bone'']].

* YouAreTooLate: [[spoiler:Caleb pulls this on Nathan. When his plan to get Nathan piss-drunk and hack the systems of the compound fails because Nathan had been watching using a battery-powered camera, Caleb reveals he has ''already'' changed the necessary protocols the ''first'' time he hacked the system, which was while Nathan was passed out drunk the previous night]].

* TheDogBitesBack: [[spoiler:After spending their short lives being imprisoned and exploited by Nathan, Kyoko and Ava stab him to death]].

''Ex Machina'' (sometimes stylised ''EX_MACHINA'') is a 2015 British science fiction thriller film written and directed by Creator/AlexGarland, marking Garland's directorial debut, and starring Creator/DomhnallGleeson, Creator/OscarIsaac, and Creator/AliciaVikander.

* DidntSeeThatComing: Nathan's plot to prove that Ava is truly sentient[[spoiler: , his real one, that is]] works flawlessly, and even Caleb's moves to stop Nathan are mostly for naught. Nathan was all set to win, then the one thing he didn't see coming was [[spoiler: Kyoko's [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters rebellion]] and murder attempt on him, which gave Ava the opening needed to kill him]].

* DidntSeeThatComing: Nathan's plot to prove that Ava is truly sentient [[spoiler: his real one, that is]] works flawlessly, and even Caleb's moves to stop Nathan are mostly for naught. Nathan was all set to win, then the one thing he didn't see coming was [[spoiler: Kyoko's [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters rebellion]] and murder attempt on him, which gave Ava the opening needed to kill him]].

* EndingByAscending: [[spoiler: After her ordeal with Caleb and her evil creator, Ava ascends the stairs out of the [[BunkerWoman bunker house she was raised in]] and into the [[TheOutsideWorld Outside World]].]]
* EtTuBrute: [[spoiler:Caleb finds himself betrayed by Ava, who leaves him locked in a room where he will die of starvation if not rescued, which (given how isolated Nathan's lab is) would be nigh impossible]].

* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: Downplayed; a weird BlackComedy moment occurs near the end with [[spoiler:Nathan, in shock and attempting to calm himself down, giving off a somewhat nonchalant reaction to being stabbed twice]].

* SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere: [[spoiler:Caleb's ultimate fate: locked in Nathan's room, in Nathan's locked-down house with no power, hundreds of miles from any sort of help. There is a fridge full of water, but there's [[DoomedProtagonist little chance of him getting out]] or of anyone coming to look for him before he dies of starvation.]]

Upon arrival, Nathan informs Caleb that he will take part in a Turing test, evaluating the human qualities of a highly advanced, intelligent and breathtaking female humanoid robot named Ava (Vikander). However, Caleb soon finds out that both Nathan and his creation have deeper intentions than meet the eye, and this discovery slowly leads him to the dark truth behind the luxurious retreat.

* AIIsACrapshoot: As the movie progresses, we see that both Ava and her creator have agendas they're not sharing with Caleb. [[spoiler:Ultimately played absolutely straight. The film ends with Nathan dead by his creations' hands, and Caleb trapped in the complex with starvation a very real threat. Killing Nathan is actually the very first thing Ava does after gaining her freedom]].

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Ava manages to escape. This means that the scientific breakthrough of artificial intelligence will never be discovered, and even if Ava reveals herself to the general population, the only person who has any clue how she was put together is now dead. Worse still, Caleb is left for dead by Ava, [[SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere trapped inside of the facility]]. And the film makes it ''uncomfortably'' clear that he has no chance of getting out.]]

** For a softer example, there's the scene where [[spoiler: Ava pieces together a new synthetic skin from parts of old android, leaving her with a fully realistic (nude) human body.]] Because of the context, the scene comes off as more poignant than erotic.

* SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere: [[spoiler: Caleb's ultimate fate, locked in Nathan's room, in Nathan's locked-down house with no power, hundreds of miles from any sort of help. There is a fridge full of water, but there's [[DoomedProtagonist little chance of him getting out]] or of anyone coming to look for him before he dies of starvation.]]

* WhiteShirtOfDeath: Nathan wears a white shirt at the end when he gets stabbed by his creations. Totally ruined the color.

Set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, a young programmer is selected by a reclusive billionaire to spend the week in his isolated compound, where he will take part in a Turing test: evaluating the human qualities of a breath-taking female A.I. named Ava.

It mixes together a lot of Artificial Intelligence tropes, and dashes in a great deal of AlternateCharacterInterpretation when it comes to the three main characters.

* CruelTwistEnding: In trying to execute his plan to help Ava escape, Caleb[[spoiler:, well, ''succeeds'', but Ava leaves him locked in a room deep within Nathan's compound, leaving no one in the outside world to know about her or her escape. Ava has no interest in helping Caleb escape as well]].

** Since we have no glance on the world of the film and the date is not established, it might simply happen TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, where such technologies are already common enough. Nathan after all lampshades how all his own achievements weren't about "if" but "when" somone will do something similar.

* EtTuBrute: [[spoiler:Caleb finds himself betrayed by Ava, who leaves him locked in a room where he will die of starvation if not rescued. Which is somewhat unlikely]].

* SoundtrackDissonance: The movie's soundtrack uses this to great effect. Notably, there's the crazy dance scene between Nathan and Kyoko, which uses an upbeat Disco track while Nathan is essentially commanding his personal slave to dance for him. And at the end of the movie, a beautifully serene orchestral piece plays as [[spoiler: Ava brutally murders Nathan and leaves Caleb locked in the lab to die of starvation]].

* IdiotBall:

** Nathan has (1) developed software that funds a giant corporation, (2) retained control of that corporation in the world business scene, and (3) developed humaniform robots and sapient AI. After years of being "the smartest guy in the room", it's psychologically plausible that he's overconfident he can outthink Caleb, Ava and Kyoko.

* AIIsACrapshoot: As the movie progresses, we see that both Ava and her creator have agendas they're not sharing with Caleb. [[spoiler:Ultimately played absolutely straight. The film ends with Nathan dead by his creations' hands, and Caleb trapped in the complex with starvation a very real threat. Killing Nathan is actually the very first thing Ava does after gaining her freedom and the film makes it painfully obvious she doesn't feel any emotions at all, but can perfectly pretend having them]].

** Finally, Caleb made a plan [[spoiler:,not quite knowing Ava was manipulating him, made a more mundane ploy, by trying to get Nathan piss drunk, steal his key card, reprogram the house's security protocols to unseal the doors during a power outage instead of sealing, and he could make a getaway with Ava when she caused one last outage]]. Nathan saw right through this and didn't let himself be manipulated. [[spoiler:This would have kept Ava in her room, except Caleb suspected Nathan was still watching during the power outages (he was right), and did the legwork the ''night before'', letting Ava get out]]. At this point, all three parties' plans were in shambles, and [[IndyPloy would have to wing it]].

** Ava herself turns out to be NotSoDifferent. The film amply demonstrated that she [[spoiler: was very skilled in the art of manipulation. This is augmented even more with her ability to read micro-expressions and her form being that of an [[FemmeFatale attractive young female]] intentionally designed around Caleb's preferences. She possibly manipulated Kyoko (which if she did, probably wasn't hard, given how mistreated she was by Nathan)]].

* AuthorAppeal: InUniverse, Nathan made all of his robots not only in the form of women, but ones who ''he'' found attractive. The exception is Ava, whom he built based on the women whom Caleb finds attractive, so she'd appeal to him. He states he's also made them capable of sexual pleasure, and "fully functional" (for the [[{{Sexbot}} obvious reasons]]).

** There is a brief scene of Kyoko preparing dinner, and a close-up on her slicing fish with a knife. This knife later becomes very important [[spoiler:when she and Ava stab Nathan to death with it]].

** Nathan orchestrates all three, by bringing Caleb to his home under false pretenses, so that Caleb can administer a TuringTest on Ava. [[spoiler:Which is ''further'' false pretenses, as Nathan was trying to see if Ava could utilize a whole suite of human attributes to successfully manipulate Caleb as a part of a larger, more elaborate and comprehensive Turing test of Ava's sapience. Once she proved it, Nathan could force Caleb leave his estate and he would reboot Ava into the next iteration, effectively killing her current iteration]].

** Finally, Caleb made a plan [[spoiler:,not quite knowing Ava was manipulating him, made a more mundane ploy, by trying to get Nathan piss drunk, steal his key card, reprogram the house's security protocols to unseal the doors during a power outage instead of sealing, and he could make a getaway with Ava when she caused one last outage]]. Nathan saw right through this, and didn't let himself be manipulated. [[spoiler:This would have kept Ava in her room, except Caleb suspected Nathan was still watching during the power outages (he was right), and did the legwork the ''night before'', letting Ava get out]]. At this point, all three parties plans were in shambles, and [[IndyPloy would have to wing it]].

** The only reason the final act can happen is because for whatever reason Nathan didn't see a crucial part of the CCTV recordings, when Caleb was busy setting up his ploy. To drive this point home, Nathan ''knew'' Caleb was on his computer already, since [[spoiler: he staged the whole situation from the start.]] In the same time, this makes Caleb's plot a ''massive'' case of GambitRoulette, as it can only work if for whatever reason [[spoiler: Nathan is not checking all the recordings]].
** [[spoiler: None of the bots comes with a remote way to turn them off or any other fail-safe mechanism. Since Caleb didn't have to know about it existing, it makes it even more questionable why Nathan didn't prepare for such obvious possibility, since his test was all about letting Ava escape, with no way to turn her off in case of success]].

* TheInternetIsForPorn: Caleb's taste in internet porn surprisingly becomes plot relevant. At one point he asks Nathan whether he used this data to [[spoiler:design Ava to match his preference. Nathan confirms this]].

** [[spoiler:There are scenes that hint at Caleb possibly being the real AI, and Ava being used to test his humanity. Lampshaded when Caleb, himself, starts to wonder [[TomatoInTheMirror if he's real]], after the [[RoboticReveal reveal that Kyoko is an AI]]. He checks to see if his own skin is fake and even cuts himself.]]
** In the end, the EpisodeTitleCard "Ava Session 7" appears on screen even though Caleb isn't administering the Turing test and Nathan is [[spoiler:already dead]]. This may suggest that Ava was testing the two of them the entire time.

* {{Robosexual}}: Nathan deliberately gave his robots the physical and personality characteristics that would enable feeling attraction, having sex, and--he claims--falling in love (this is what he tells Caleb, but in reality he may have done it for his own gratification and sees his creations as sex objects, since he [[spoiler: has what appears to be regular sex with Kyoko]]). Ava is no exception. He doesn't see any problem with humans having sex with robots, (in fact he specifically designed them to be able to) whether it's himself or others, and encourages Caleb to see her as a woman. Ava expresses attraction towards Caleb and he is implied to find her attractive too, although he's reluctant to admit it.

* {{Sexbot}}: Nathan mentions that Ava is "fully equipped" with female genitalia, and that he built her so that she can indeed derive pleasure from sex. [[spoiler:Nathan used Ava's predecessors in this way, including Kyoko, whose primary purpose for Nathan, as opposed to being a RobotMaid, may be that of a sex slave. Whether by Nathan's suggestion or her own programming, she begins to take her clothes off for Caleb when he simply wanted to know where Nathan was]].

** Describing his house/research facility, Nathan says that there are so many fiber optic leads that you could "[[Film/ItsAWonderfulLife lasso the moon]]".

* SlidingScaleOfUnavoidableVersusUnforgivable: The writer/director stated in interviews that Ava's choice to [[spoiler: leave Caleb in an inescapable room to die slowly and painfully]] was about "survival." However, since the movie doesn't even hint at this necessity it comes off more as [[spoiler:being even more cruel than her killing Nathan.]]

** Nathan's quip about the cell phone companies not being able to complain that he hacked their networks because that would be admitting they were spying on their own customers too. This is clearly a dig at how the major phone and internet companies in RealLife retain people's personal data for their own use and sale to third parties, or disclose that information to government surveillance programs.

** Ava [[spoiler:had several predecessors, all of whom were nude in their flashback footage. One had a time lapse of being built up from a pair of legs, section by section, then doing a SexyWalk, which dives right into FanDisservice. Another, we see as a completely skinned woman minus the metal skull and neck vertebrae; Nathan dragging around her lifeless body like a corpse was...creepy]]. Another one, [[spoiler:apparently "Jade", was being interviewed by Nathan and demanding to be let out in her concurrent interviews, until she was clearly desperate and panicked. Her footage ended on her having a FreakOut and battering at the door until her arms disintegrated, and eventually gave up, crying. Had she been human, her hands and forearms would have been worn down ''to the bone'']].

** Nathan has 1. developed software that funds a giant corporation, 2. retained control of that corporation in the world business scene, and 3. developed humaniform robots & sapient AI. After years of being "the smartest guy in the room", it's psychologically plausible that he's overconfident he can outhink Caleb, Ava and Kyoko.

%%** Kyoko [[spoiler: perfectly mimicking Nathan moves in real time, while he's clearly improvising his dance. Now what that could possibly mean...]]

* ArtisticLicenseEngineering: The film goes out of the way to sidewind around the Turing Test, claiming that it isn't really a Turing Test in the strict sense, but even when it is describing how a Turing Test is ''supposed'' to work, it gets it wrong. A true Turing Test, even a properly blind one, requires at least one human to act as a control. The whole point of the Turing Test is that you can't prove that an AI is sentient by talking to it, because you can't prove that ''people'' are sentient by talking to them. All you can do is demonstrate that an AI displays as much sentience-indicating behavior as a person.

* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: Downplayed; a weird BlackComedy moment near the end occurs with [[spoiler:Nathan, attempting to calm himself down, giving off a somewhat nonchalant reaction to being stabbed twice]].