The Imitation Game (2014)

[J.D.]

The Imitation Game (2014)

Nominally 2014 but I don't think it opened here before New Year. Anyhow, The Imitation Game is a largely fictitious account of the life and work of Bletchley Park's genius-in-residence, Alan Turing. There are two basic parts to the story, both well known. Firstly, he cracked the German Enigma code during WWII. Secondly, he was homosexual at a time when it was illegal in Britain. The secondary parts to the story are that to break the unbreakable code, he had to invent and build the world's first electric computer (which he had actually done before the war) and he committed suicide after undergoing chemical castration to "cure his homosexuality". And he actually was involved with a woman called Joan Clarke.

Most of the reality stops there.

Turing has been described as potentially having had some of the attributes of Aspberger's Syndrome and was generally thought to be a bit odd. Apart from his brilliant mathematical work at Cambridge, he was an exceptional long distance runner and seemed able to push himself beyond what most were capable of. His style of work was one of obsession. In the end it was his use of Polish-developed "bombes" and his own machine in a combination which made the achievements of Bletchley Park what they were. Turing eventually visited the US to see the work they were doing on their own computer which was being designed by people like Johnny von Neumann to calculate the thickness of the explosive shell for the implosion weapon which destroyed Nagasaki. For his work, he was awarded the OBE after the war but had to remain silent about it.

The film combines a lot of characters and events and takes a lot of liberties with others. I suspect his more eccentric characteristics have been somewhat exaggerated for the benefit of the movie. You can find the goodies and the baddies easily (Charles Dance is probably a baddie but you will work that out very quickly) and there are plot points which simply could not have happened with that amount of talent in the same room. The scene when they decide not to advise a convoy it is to be attacked is rather overdone in my opinion. There's just too much to take in in that one scene and it kind of beggars belief that it would even have happened that way. Some of the other plot points, like realisations when it was almost too late, just came off as a bit too contrived. Again, I don't believe for a minute things happened that way. Codebreaking was nothing new to the British; Blinker Hall had been doing it in the First War so the procedures were well known. Turing and his team just took it to a new level.

On the acting side I could find nothing to fault. Benedict Cumerbatch is quite brilliant. I don't like Keira Knightley but she was a lot better than I expected her to be. I thought there was some chemistry between her and Cumerbatch when I was expecting none. For me it worked quite well. Other than the three I've mentioned, I didn't really recognise too many of the others. Alex Lawther, the boy who played the young Turing at Sherborne School, was something of a revelation. He just did his stuff and had me totally convinced.

All in all, it's good but not a killer. It tries just a bit too hard. The production quality, the direction and acting, were all excellent. I felt it was the script or screen play which was the weakest part. They really shouldn't have had to resort to so many plot tricks to convince the audience. Despite some of the more humorous moments, mostly revolving around Turing's eccentricities, I thought it came off as a bit soap-opera-esque but for all that, it was worth a look. But as any sort of monument to one of the greatest minds in history, it leaves something to be desired.

The definitive story of Alan Turing is yet to be told.

7/10

[richo]

I enjoyed the film more than I thought I would so much so I am reading his biography as we speak

[Durrie]

You could try your hand at cracking some original Kriegsmarine messages with this emulator http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/enigmasim.htm (see the "M4 Project" link lower down on the linked page).

Hopefully they provide some substitute for Blechley Park's approach to narrowing down the machine's settings. If they don't provide the cheat, then I think you'd have to build your own Christopher.