Being the adventures of a young man ... who couldn't resist pretty girls ... or a bit of the old ultra-violence ... went to jail, was re-conditioned ... and came out a different young man ... or was he?
Why it is hard sci-fi
Soft on the technology, hard on the social science. The film is a thought experiment about behavioural conditioning carried to its logical end. The Ludovico Technique is fictional but follows real Pavlovian and aversion-therapy traditions. Kubrick is rigorous about the political consequences of curing crime by removing choice.
Science inside it
Classical and operant conditioning, aversive therapy, drug-assisted reconditioning. The state cures Alex by pairing his violent impulses with nausea using emetics and forced viewing. The clinical scenes track the actual structure of mid-century behaviourist research.