The Imitation Game, 2014
Directed by Morten Tyldum.
Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Mark Strong, Charles Dance, Allen Leech and Tuppence Middleton.
SYNOPSIS:
English mathematician and logician, Alan Turing, helps crack the Enigma code during World War II.
A break and enter to the house of an eccentric Cambridge Mathematics professor whose off-handed and demeaning manner about the crime raises the suspicions of a 1950s British police detective; he goes about conducting an investigation expecting to uncover some treasonable activities but instead uncovers something else.
The man called into question is Alan Turing who was bullied at private school but was befriended and mentored by a classmate during the 1920s. A similar relationship develops for Turing in the 1940s with the sole female member of the Bletchley Park code breaking team. The period biopic shifts seamlessly between the three different decades, and an image develops of Alan Turing as being socially awkward and logical as well as having the capacity for compassion as displayed with his unwavering support for his recruit Joan Clarke.
Humour is not lacking as Alan Turing defies all of the social conventions with amusing results which is accompanied by some witty lines by Stewart Menzies, the man who works for the organization that apparently does not exist: MI6. If there is a lesson to be learned it is that incidental moments can lead to major discoveries and that people continually underestimate each other.
Like with Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club (2013), The Imitation Game serves as an acting showcase for Benedict Cumberbatch who embraces all of the quirkiness of Alan Turing which will likely be the showy performance that secures an Oscar nomination for him. A nice touch is the simple and effective scene when Alan Turing sees a boy in a train doing a crossword puzzle and smiles which conveys a sense that would have been him at that age. Unfortunately, despite having unconventional characters the biopic is rather conventional; the storyline is formulaic, thereby, making the conflicts and turning points forced rather than natural.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Originally published September 10, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
