Tis the season for the lives of geniuses captured on film. The similarities between Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game and the Stephen Hawking movie The Theory of Everything stretch beyond the gigantic intellect of their subjects. Both films endeavor to simplify extraordinary achievements to fit within understandable genre. For Hawking it was a love story; for Turing its wartime espionage that captures the attention of his feverish brain. While effective at cementing Turing's place as a WWII hero who was tragically punished for his sexuality, so much of The Imitation Game is boiled down for easy consumption that it doesn't compute quite as it should.
Chronicling a WWII story emphasizing brains over firepower, the film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the socially awkward and abrasive Turing. A mathematical heavyweight better with numbers and codes than people, Turing is recruited to head up a top secret program to decipher the Nazi "Enigma" code which had been confounding the Allies and extending an already terrible war. The longer it takes to crack Enigma, the more soldiers die. Crack the code, the war ends; everybody goes home heroes, right? Well, not so easy. Penned by first-timer Graham Moore, the story does a great job getting across just how important Turing's mission is, but also the price he would pay for accomplishing it.Joined by other highly-skilled cryptanalysts and big brains such as eventual fiancé Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley) and Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), Turing is essentially in a race against multiple ticking clocks, and the suspense of it is consistently thrilling in a spy movie kind of way. A machine is built that should be able to figure out Enigma; the higher-ups don't believe in it; Turing's team don't believe in him because he's such a jerk. Of course he'll need to soften his tone and make a few friends before everything can work out.
The film is titled The Imitation Game and it applies as much to Turing's personal life as the codes he's so adept at cracking. Jumping between Turing's childhood, 1941 during the war, and 1951 long after it was over, we're gently taken through Turing's personal life, as if director Morten Tyldum hopes to tip-toe us through the scandalous weeds. A homosexual during a time when it was a crime to be so, Turing's eccentric personality and introverted nature are forged out of intense secrecy. Later, he would be convicted for being gay and forced to undergo dehumanizing hormonal treatments. While its heartbreaking to watch the brilliant Turing reduced to a scared, quivering wreck interrogated by a weary cop, these scenes are treated with a tremendous amount of British subtlety. It's a lot like they're still embarrassed over the treatment Turing received. But when exploring the dark morality at the center of this great Enigma mystery the film briefly reaches incredibly tense heights. Cracking the code may save lives, but revealing their success could doom thousands more. How do you keep something like that secret? Should you? It becomes a game of choosing which attacks to foil and which to let happen, a terrible choice nobody should be forced to make. They've been granted the power of life and death for a great many people, and the exploration of that is one of the film's most gripping aspects. Certainly it's more interesting than watching them stare at the machine while we wonder what's going on.Cumberbatch is good, as expected, but that seems to be the recurring theme with him. He's good. Playing Turing as close to on the Autism scale as possible, his performance is appropriately awkward and bristling, but Cumberbatch is beginning to play every character in the same fashion. The rest of the cast aren't given much to work with despite playing renowned figures in the field, as well. Basically they exist to reflect certain aspects of Turing's personality. Goode is all swagger as the brilliant Alexander, while Knightley is the lens through which we see Turing's dual lives. Their friendship-turned-"romance" is never given the attention needed to be resonant later on, but Knightley is reliably effective.
In the end, The Imitation Game ably details a little-known corner of the WWII story, one that has incredible relevance today. Turing, who was only recently given an official apology by the British government, is considered one of the forefathers of the modern computer and a leader in the field of artificial intelligence. Despite the terrible prejudice and persecution he would face, Turing's legacy is undeniable and can never be lost to the annals of history. The Imitation Game doesn't connect us with Turing in the way it should, but by showing us the tremendous good he was able to accomplish it makes us thankful he was who he was.
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