Ex Machina starts small, and where it easily could’ve gone the way of gatling guns and transforming robots with laser beam vision, it ends small too. It’s a brave move I like to think was motivated by art more than a small budget, a benefit of the doubt that by Ex Machina’s end writer and director Alex Garland has certainly earned. It’s a complex, haunting, and beautiful work that’s a spiritual sequel to 2013’s excellent Her, puzzling over the sooner-than-we-think discovery of the singularity. No, not the singularity at the heart of a black hole. The singularity, or “technological singularity”, is the moment in time when artificial intelligence, A.I., will surpass human intellect as well as control. It’s a sci-fi staple easy to think has been expired of fresh possibilities. Ex Machina is a 108-minute argument that proves that idea wrong. Some have cried out against some goofy plot problems, but this is exactly the sort of work where that’s what matters least. More an opera of ideas than a production of action, violence, or deafeningly loud melodrama, questions are asked but rarely answered. Ex Machina is the first great film of 2015.

Domhnall Gleeson plays Caleb, an up-and-coming computer programmer who works at a company stand-in for Google called BlueBook. In a gorgeously filmed sequence absent of almost any dialogue, Caleb wins an elite VIP trip to visit the eccentric and reclusive genius CEO that invented BlueBook at age 13. His eccentricities extend to a bald head and burly man beard, and he continues with all the social ease of a pitbull around a collie. His name is Nathan (Oscar Isaac), and he’s working on something new that’s more top secret than top secret. He forces Caleb to sign an NDA that gives up any right to privacy for at least a year. Every conversation he has, online or in person, will be monitored. Tipping Caleb to Nathan’s work, he’s asked if he knows what a Turing Test is. He says yes. It’s a test designed to see if someone can talk to a computer without realizing it’s an artificial intelligence and not a person. For the first time in human history, an A.I. may have been created and her name, appropriately, is Ava (Alicia Vikander). She’s beautiful, resourceful, and capable of conversation so advanced she can make jokes. She flirts and tempts you to flirt back. It’s Caleb’s job to determine whether she’s a real, genuine artificial intelligence or something less revolutionary.

What unfurls is a fascinating reflection on artificial intelligence that doubles as a captivating character study, one expertly performed by Isaac, Gleeson, and Vikander. A common mistake is reducing characters to just one thing; i.e., Billy is a walking symbol supporting the war and Sally is the mouthpiece for pacifism. The conversations between Caleb, Nathan, and Ava are multi-faceted and nuanced, agilely blending philosophy and art into dialogue scenes that often take place over beer or vodka. Like casually talking about how A.I. will eclipse and eventually eliminate humanity. The robots of the future will look back on us the way we think of the first men. You realize they’re probably right, but in the way you nod your head when a coworker has a surprising insight in off-the-cuff conversation rather than from a TED Talk. Garland’s screenplay wields the athleticism of an olympic gymnast, having the balanced footing to make conceptual movements that are neither big or small; they’re just right.