Review 332: The Imitation Game
The Imitation Game is a wonderfully remarkable historical thriller and easily my favourite film of 2014 so far.Based on the biography, Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges, The film depicts a race against time by Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his elite team of code-breakers including Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), John Cairncross (Allen Leech), Peter Hilton (Matthew Beard) and Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley) at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park during the darkest days of WWII much to the reluctance of Commander Alistair Denniston (Charles Dance).
The film also flashes back to Turing's school years in the late 1920's and his time being interrogated by the English police led by Det Nock (Rory Kinnear) in the 1950's.
Note: Not all of this summary is historically accurate.
The plot is a beautiful and tragic piece of historical writing. It shows us that Alan Turing, the film's central hero, who, along with his team of code breakers, brings victory to the Allies and saved coutless lives by inventing the Bombe, an electro-mechanical device that would give birth to the machine age. He was later publicly vilified and savegly punished for engaging in homosexual activity.
He was someone who a lot of people ignored. His theories and ideas because they mealy didn't understand how people like him operated.
One the one hand, this film is a wonderfully, old fashioned WWII spy drama about a stellar team of cryptography team cracking Nazi Germany's Enigma code. On the other hand, it's an examination of the tragic circumstances that befell Alan Turing and it has a kind of stringent streak about what happened to him.
Rather than being showered with medels and awards from scientific commities, the closeted genius was subjected to unjust interogation for homosexuality.
Another extraordinary poignant part of this film is how it examines how hard and borderline illegal it was to be homosexual in those days.
As well as being brilliant, Alan Turing was also a homosexual but he couldn't express that or truly be himself because if he did he would be put in prison.
People weren't open minded about homosexuality in those days and it was more conservative and society and serves as a painful reminder of England's homophobic past.
It's this late addition to the films narrative that drive home the films themes of the importance of individuality and self-worth: Alan Turing thought on an unconventional level and in the end he saved millions of lives and that way, became a unslung hero.
Director Morten Tyldum's (a Norwegian film director making his English-language directional debut) direction is precise, the cinematography is beautiful and captures the bleak and difficult look of London during the war, the score by Alexandre Desplat is wonderful, making excellently effective use of continuous piano arpeggios to represent both Turing's thinking mind and the workings of a mechanical machine. The costumes are terrific, the production design (recreating war torn London) is fantastic, the props are masterfully crafted; the bombe that Turing crated was a precursor to the modern day computer and it's recreated with such a strong eye for detail with loads of cogs and turning wheels which make up its guts and entrails . The make up is rich and the ending has a contrast to it.
The acting is spot on, Benedict Cumberbatch delivers the possibly the best performance of his career, similar to the titular character on Sherlock, he plays a genius who's mind opperates quite differently from he manages to distance the part from that role in his spellbinding portrayal of Turing's persistence, genius and allround sensitive portrayal of a man who was ahead of his time. He did effectively help the allies win the war.
Matthew Goode, Allen Leech and Matthew Beard are very strong playing Hugh Alexander, John Cairncross and Peter Hilton respectively; initially wary of Turing at first, they soon come to trust him and become his great allies in trying to crack the enigma code. It's this unlikely friendship between them which provides the film so much depth.
The way they interact and argue and bounce theories off each other is riveting and fascinating to watch. The bond that develops between them, Turing and Cryptanalysis Joan Clarke is enduring, poignent and deeply affecting.
Keira Knightly is sensitive and lovely as Joan Clarke, it's just great that Turing had a strong woman in his group of codebreaker and this film takes place in a time when women were second class citizens, so it terrific to see this women aid these code-breakers in saving human lives. It was also terrific to see a wonderful portrayal of someone Alan Turing had a relationship with.
Charles Dance brings a great deal of While the Commander Alistair Denniston and while the part is similar to the character of Tywin Lannister, Dancemanages to distance himself from the part with his own interesting spin on the character type, he was just one of many people who just didn't understand Turing's theories and as a result, he saw him as unreliable and tried to shut him down and while he did ultimately allow Turing and his gang to continue their attempts to crack the Enigma Code, he was very reluctant to do so. As a result, you understand the man and his motivations.
Apart from Cumberbatch, Mark Strong has easily the most fascinating character arc playing Maj. Gen. Stewart Menzies. This is mostly because he has the best character revelation of any supporting character that's best left unspoiled.
For the majority of the film he gives a sinister, dark, brooding, he's-a-man-of-very-few-words esque, mysterious performance, you never know what he's up to.
Rory Kinnear is also very strong as Det. Nock, he's curious, he wants to get to the bottom of the Turing case but he's not sure what to believe due to all the destroyed documents, he wants to be fair to Turing but he also has to do because of course at that time, it was illegal to be gay.
Another extraordinary poignant part of this film is how it examines how hard and borderline illegal it was to be homosexual in those days.
As well as being brilliant, Alan Turing was also a homosexual but he couldn't express that or truly be himself because if he did he would be put in prison.
People weren't open minded about homosexuality in those days and it was more conservative and society and serves as a painful reminder of England's homophobic past.
It's this late addition to the films narrative that drive home the films themes of the importance of individuality and self-worth: Alan Turing thought on an unconventional level and in the end he saved millions of lives and that way, became a unslung hero.
Director Morten Tyldum's (a Norwegian film director making his English-language directional debut) direction is precise, the cinematography is beautiful and captures the bleak and difficult look of London during the war, the score by Alexandre Desplat is wonderful, making excellently effective use of continuous piano arpeggios to represent both Turing's thinking mind and the workings of a mechanical machine. The costumes are terrific, the production design (recreating war torn London) is fantastic, the props are masterfully crafted; the bombe that Turing crated was a precursor to the modern day computer and it's recreated with such a strong eye for detail with loads of cogs and turning wheels which make up its guts and entrails . The make up is rich and the ending has a contrast to it.
The acting is spot on, Benedict Cumberbatch delivers the possibly the best performance of his career, similar to the titular character on Sherlock, he plays a genius who's mind opperates quite differently from he manages to distance the part from that role in his spellbinding portrayal of Turing's persistence, genius and allround sensitive portrayal of a man who was ahead of his time. He did effectively help the allies win the war.
Matthew Goode, Allen Leech and Matthew Beard are very strong playing Hugh Alexander, John Cairncross and Peter Hilton respectively; initially wary of Turing at first, they soon come to trust him and become his great allies in trying to crack the enigma code. It's this unlikely friendship between them which provides the film so much depth.
The way they interact and argue and bounce theories off each other is riveting and fascinating to watch. The bond that develops between them, Turing and Cryptanalysis Joan Clarke is enduring, poignent and deeply affecting.
Keira Knightly is sensitive and lovely as Joan Clarke, it's just great that Turing had a strong woman in his group of codebreaker and this film takes place in a time when women were second class citizens, so it terrific to see this women aid these code-breakers in saving human lives. It was also terrific to see a wonderful portrayal of someone Alan Turing had a relationship with.
Charles Dance brings a great deal of While the Commander Alistair Denniston and while the part is similar to the character of Tywin Lannister, Dancemanages to distance himself from the part with his own interesting spin on the character type, he was just one of many people who just didn't understand Turing's theories and as a result, he saw him as unreliable and tried to shut him down and while he did ultimately allow Turing and his gang to continue their attempts to crack the Enigma Code, he was very reluctant to do so. As a result, you understand the man and his motivations.
Apart from Cumberbatch, Mark Strong has easily the most fascinating character arc playing Maj. Gen. Stewart Menzies. This is mostly because he has the best character revelation of any supporting character that's best left unspoiled.
For the majority of the film he gives a sinister, dark, brooding, he's-a-man-of-very-few-words esque, mysterious performance, you never know what he's up to.
Rory Kinnear is also very strong as Det. Nock, he's curious, he wants to get to the bottom of the Turing case but he's not sure what to believe due to all the destroyed documents, he wants to be fair to Turing but he also has to do because of course at that time, it was illegal to be gay.
Steven Waddington and Tuppence Middleton round out the films
The Imitation Game is a gripping, exciting, superbly acted historical thriller and easy contender for Best Picture (2014), 5/5.
The Anonymos Critic.
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