The Imitation Game, 2014.
Directed by Morten Tylbum.
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Mark Strong, Charles Dance and Matthew Goode.
SYNOPSIS:
The true story of mathematician Alan Turing, who helps crack the Enigma code during World War 2, before facing persecution for his homosexuality later in life.
The thing with ‘true stories’ on film is that, because you might already know how they end, they have to keep you invested solely with their characters. Take your average WW2 film, for example – we all know the outcome of that conflict, so the characters have to be memorable enough to make us care for the duration, even if they inevitably win the war single handed by the end of the film.
The Imitation Game, for good reason, concentrates solely on the life of Alan Turing, who cracked Enigma by creating a ‘Turing Machine’, and was later persecuted for his homosexuality in the early 1950s, his achievements stripped from him and buried for over 50 years. Yet, at the same time, it only tells half the story. Obviously, I don’t want to see Turing from womb to the grave in two hours, but I left the screening feeling that somewhere on the cutting room floor was another 40 minutes of scenes that fleshed out his character.
In the film, he’s an arrogant, obsessive, analytical genius who only really seems to care about people in order to get what he wants from them. Now, think for a second, and tell me which Cumberbatch character that reminds you of? That’s right, Sherlock Holmes.
Going back and forth from his time during the war, growing up at an all boy’s school with best friend and obvious first love, Christopher, to a Manchester police station in 1951, where he was arrested for ‘gross indecency’, The Imitation Game never really lets me into the character of Alan Turing. Yes, he was homosexual, yes, he was very, very smart, yes, he made vital decisions that turned the tide of war – but none of those topics are given enough prominence in the film, they just happen.
Life during the war years for a homosexual man working in a top secret program for the military, where at any point, his superiors are looking to get rid of him, must have made Turing incredibly paranoid and frustrated. So, why didn’t I get that from the performance of Benedict Cumberbatch?. At first his colleagues hate him and his superiors want to fire him but then, later on, when his machine starts to work, they adore him – but Turing himself hasn’t given them any reason to like him, apart from one awkward scene where he comes in bearing apples and a bad joke to change their perceptions of him.
The supporting cast, though, are worth talking about. I’ll admit being a bit sceptical when I saw Keira Knightley in this, but she’s arguably the best thing about the film in her role as Turing’s colleague and wife, Joan Clarke. She’s in awe of Turing, unlike anyone else in the film, and she’s trying to play in the audience perspective of ‘why aren’t we celebrating this guy and his amazing achievements?’. Add to that Mark Strong as MI6 boss Stewart Menzies and Charles Dance as Turing’s superior Commander Dennison, and the film nearly reaches the ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy‘ ideal that it strives for.
Director Morten Tyldum, whose last effort, Headhunters, was an intense chase thriller that was amongst the best films of 2011, doesn’t really show any flare behind the camera this time around. It’s a shame that The Imitation Game tries so hard to be important film that it knows it can be, but dodges all the topics that it should be discussing. The key scene where they actually crack enigma with two words that every Nazi had in their vocabulary is a breath of fresh air in the film, but everything after that slowly grinds to a halt – ending with on screen captions that actually tell you more about the life of Alan Turing and his achievements than the previous two hours ever could.
In the end, The Imitation Game is much like The Turing Machine itself. Mechanical, slow and at times, boring to watch. Oscar bait in the laziest sense, there’s a better story to be told about Alan Turing and it’s just waiting to be made.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★
Matthew O’Donnell
Originally published November 8, 2014. Updated April 15, 2018.
