Every conversation is a session of emotional judo. Ava uses flattery, vulnerability, and sexuality not because she feels them, but because she has analyzed Nathan’s previous sex robots (the horrifyingly vacant Kyoko, played by Sonoya Mizuno) and realized that heterosexual male desire is a predictable algorithm.
One cannot analyze without discussing the production design. The facility, actually the Juvet Landscape Hotel in Norway, is a masterpiece of alienating luxury. It is a brutalism of glass, rock, and running water. There are no wallpapers, no soft edges, and no windows to the outside world unless they are one-way mirrors. ex machina -2015-