you're freaked out
To counter yesterday 's Katniss Everdeen, we have Ava (Alicia Vikander) in Ex Machina . Literally programmed to be who she is, Ava demonstrates more agency in one film than Katniss does in three... Maybe. There is a point where the "programming" inherent in cinematic characters by the writer and the director and the actor (let's call this LEVEL 2) conflict with the "programming" of the character within the story by her creator, Nathan (Oscar Isaac) (which we'll call LEVEL 1, since we're talking about the film here), and where both of those levels of "programming" conflict with the real-life "programming" that a woman receives from the society around her (LEVEL 3). We'll come back to the issue of programming. First--and this entry will be full of SPOILERS big and small--Nathan's introduction is entirely manipulative of both Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) and the audience. Reclusive tech-genius living in (my personal take) an ...