Extraordinary, brilliant, resonant, compelling movie of a sort that sadly we hardly ever see coming out of Hollywood - intricately plotted although tightly focussed on only four characters (why does everyone forget the second AI?) and claustrophobically contained within the weirdly beautiful, scarily remote country retreat of reclusive genius Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac).

Bateman has been making himself an artificial woman, for perhaps not the noblest of motives, and now requires an external partner in his creepy games. Enter delightfully naïve and goofy Caleb Smith (surely that name is no accident) beautifully played by Domhnall (son of Brendan) Gleeson, who thinks he has won a competition, a la Willy Wonka, to spend a week in Bateman's home. Immediately he is drawn into Bateman's agenda, without being aware of his hidden agenda - Bateman invites him to take part in a Turing Test, to evaluate the intelligence, capabilities, and ultimately sentience of his latest experiment in AI. This is Ava (Alicia Vikander), an extraordinary feat of fx, who simultaneously appears to be beautiful,vulnerable, clever and charming, yet is very obviously a machine.

Isaac plays Bateman as a disturbingly flawed human, whose motives are suspected by young Caleb almost from the first, and whose behaviour has become increasingly weird in his mountainous isolation. The growing but largely unspoken antagonism between the two men deflects Caleb's (and our) attention from what is really going on - which I would not reveal for worlds - leading to a really electrifying climax.

It's not the sort of movie to provide neat answers at the conclusion, but it is full of breathtaking stuff which certainly does stay in your randomly accessible memory a lot longer than most movies. Absolutely awesome and can't wait to add it to my collection.