Just watched Ex Machina, while working on a review for Annihilation. Both by Alex Garland. Because I've seen it before, I knew the twists were coming - and yet... it's still not as simple as it proclaims to be.
If we accept that Caleb is there as a foil, that Nathan is testing Ava's ability to manipulate him to get what she wants (to escape,) there are several problems with this.
First off, he's a terrible subject for this test. An only child whose parents died when he was young and spent a lot of time in the hospital growing up and has no girlfriend or apparently friends to speak of - everything about him screams naive, lonely, and easily emotionally manipulated. He is clearly below average on the emotional IQ scale. Could she manipulate a more savvy person?
Second, and more confounding - after all, the test is whether or not she can manipulate a human being to get what she wants, not especially how good at it she is - is all the ways Nathan helps her out. Every time Caleb gets suspicious, Nathan is there to help her out - and he's a much better manipulator than she is. Caleb wonders if her flirting is a programmed behavior, Nathan says for the record it isn't - she really likes you, she has a crush on you, can you blame her? Caleb figures out that he's not there by random chance, he's been selected, and Nathan's there to blow sunshine up his ass - it's because you're the smartest and best, not lucky, chosen. Which of course is bullshit; he's there because he's easily manipulated, evidenced by the fact that he buys this line of crap from Nathan, and even comes to believe he's capable of manipulating Nathan. The easiest way to con someone is to let them believe they're conning you.
Could Ava have manipulated Caleb without Nathan's help? Unanswerable, but it would be a really different test if Nathan had stayed out of it, or confirmed Caleb's suspicions, or if Caleb had been generally more savvy to begin with.
All of which makes it seem extremely unlikely that Caleb would be able to set Ava free by re-programming the security protocols the night before, instead of that night. Nathan, who has been a step ahead the whole movie, is suddenly dumb enough to get black out drunk and leave that door wide open? Inconsistent. Also, Nathan is not smart enough to develop some kind of failsafe in his robots, just in case something goes wrong? Implausible. He's arrogant, no doubt, but everything about his house, and his plan to test Ava, shows careful and meticulous planning.
Annihilation is on some level about our urge toward self destruction - it makes some sense (though it doesn't solve all the problems) to believe that Nathan, on some level, wants Ava to defeat him, wants her to escape and destroy the world (or something - she seems to only want to people-watch.) "It's promethean, man." He seems to know he's created something horrible, something world-changing, and can't bring himself to destroy it/her. It's evolution, man. It's inevitable.
If we accept that Caleb is there as a foil, that Nathan is testing Ava's ability to manipulate him to get what she wants (to escape,) there are several problems with this.
First off, he's a terrible subject for this test. An only child whose parents died when he was young and spent a lot of time in the hospital growing up and has no girlfriend or apparently friends to speak of - everything about him screams naive, lonely, and easily emotionally manipulated. He is clearly below average on the emotional IQ scale. Could she manipulate a more savvy person?
Second, and more confounding - after all, the test is whether or not she can manipulate a human being to get what she wants, not especially how good at it she is - is all the ways Nathan helps her out. Every time Caleb gets suspicious, Nathan is there to help her out - and he's a much better manipulator than she is. Caleb wonders if her flirting is a programmed behavior, Nathan says for the record it isn't - she really likes you, she has a crush on you, can you blame her? Caleb figures out that he's not there by random chance, he's been selected, and Nathan's there to blow sunshine up his ass - it's because you're the smartest and best, not lucky, chosen. Which of course is bullshit; he's there because he's easily manipulated, evidenced by the fact that he buys this line of crap from Nathan, and even comes to believe he's capable of manipulating Nathan. The easiest way to con someone is to let them believe they're conning you.
Could Ava have manipulated Caleb without Nathan's help? Unanswerable, but it would be a really different test if Nathan had stayed out of it, or confirmed Caleb's suspicions, or if Caleb had been generally more savvy to begin with.
All of which makes it seem extremely unlikely that Caleb would be able to set Ava free by re-programming the security protocols the night before, instead of that night. Nathan, who has been a step ahead the whole movie, is suddenly dumb enough to get black out drunk and leave that door wide open? Inconsistent. Also, Nathan is not smart enough to develop some kind of failsafe in his robots, just in case something goes wrong? Implausible. He's arrogant, no doubt, but everything about his house, and his plan to test Ava, shows careful and meticulous planning.
Annihilation is on some level about our urge toward self destruction - it makes some sense (though it doesn't solve all the problems) to believe that Nathan, on some level, wants Ava to defeat him, wants her to escape and destroy the world (or something - she seems to only want to people-watch.) "It's promethean, man." He seems to know he's created something horrible, something world-changing, and can't bring himself to destroy it/her. It's evolution, man. It's inevitable.
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