10 Hidden Details In Opening And Closing Movie Scenes You Completely Missed
7. Ex Machina - Ava Fits In Perfectly
Alex Garland’s 2015 sci-fi thriller, Ex Machina, definitely ranks up there as one of the best sci-fi films of recent times, examining the growing presence of artificial intelligence in our lives.
The film centres on a young programmer, Caleb (Domnhall Gleeson), who is selected by his CEO, Nathan (Oscar Isaac), to participate in an experiment, where he will perform the Turing Test on a highly advanced AI, called Ava (Alicia Vikander), who is slowly growing more and more self-aware.
It opens with the shot of Caleb’s office, in which there is a large glass window, where we can see many people reflected in the window. The film closes on the exact same shot, just after Ava has escaped Nathan’s facility, and she blends in with a large crowd.
Ex Machina constantly discusses what it means to be human, and explores whether technology is so advanced that it's now at a place where AI can pass as human. The end gives us a clear answer to this - Ava blends into a large crowd of people and goes completely undetected, and is now, to the unknown eye, just like the rest of us.