THE IMITATION GAME
Director : Morten Tyldum
Cast : Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Mark Strong, Matthew Goode, Charles Dance, Allen Leech, Vanessa Kirby, Rory Kinnear, Matthew Beard
Genre : Thriller/Drama
Run Time : 114 mins
Opens : 22 January 2015
Rating : NC16
Alan
Turing: mathematician, cryptanalyst, often considered the father of modern
computing and a unique war hero who was persecuted later in his life. The man
is as fascinating and compelling a biopic subject as they come. Benedict
Cumberbatch plays Turing, the story shifting between three pivotal periods of
Turing’s life: his school days, his secret wartime code-breaking work at
Bletchley Park and his post-war conviction of gross indecency. Much more at
home with puzzles and ciphers than in social settings, Turing’s co-workers at
Bletchley Park’s Hut 8, particularly chess champion Hugh Alexander (Goode),
find him insufferable. As the Second World War rages on, Commander Alastair
Denniston (Dance) breathes down Turing’s neck for results. Turing goes about
developing a machine with the goal of deciphering German messages encoded with
the Enigma Machine – a task deemed impossible.
The
Imitation Game is based on Alan Hodges’ biography Alan Turing: The Enigma. Graham Moore’s screenplay landed at the
top of the Black List, an annual survey of the most-liked unproduced scripts in
Hollywood, in 2011. The title The
Imitation Game refers to the Turing test, which determines how well a
machine can imitate the thought processes of a human being. At face value, this
looks entirely like an Oscar-bait biopic carefully engineered for maximum
Academy voter appeal. Despite its Norwegian director Morten Tyldum and American
screenwriter Moore, it does seem very British indeed, and if there’s anything
the Academy loves, it’s British-y biopics built around an attention-grabbing
tour de force performance – see The
King’s Speech’s triumph over The
Social Network at the 83rd Academy Awards. We reckon it is
possible to go into the film harbouring all these cynical pre-conceived notions
and to walk out of the theatre afterwards unmoved, but one would have to be a
special brand of jaded to do so.
The standard biopic tropes we’ve
come to expect of awards-contender “based on a true story” prestige pictures
are all there, but The Imitation Game
handily transcends them, never letting up in just how absorbing it is.
Naturally, this is due in no small part to Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal of
Turing. Cumberbatch has captured the world’s imagination and is that rare
combination of a superstar, a “serious actor”, a geek icon and, as he is
probably tired of being described as, an unlikely sex symbol. We’ve become
accustomed to “eccentric geniuses” in various media, the smartest people in the
room who don’t suffer fools and have unorthodox but highly effective methods of
solving problems – Cumberbatch’s take on Sherlock Holmes could definitely be classified
as such. There have also been various explorations of the “dark side” of
genius, the inner demons that misunderstood prodigies grapple with. As Alan
Turing, Cumberbatch is able to paint a highly sympathetic portrait of a man
who, if he were “normal”, would not have accomplished what he had. When
audiences question the veracity of a biopic, it is often brought about as much
by the shortcomings of the actor as by the script’s fictionalisation of real
events. This reviewer did not detect that here. To dismiss Cumberbatch’s Turing
as “just another troubled wunderkind who can’t make personal connections” would
be a great disservice.
While the film was in production,
there was the worry that Turing’s homosexuality would not be mentioned.
Thankfully, it is addressed, and as such Keira Knightley’s Joan Clarke is far
from the superfluous love interest she could have been depicted as if such
liberties were taken with the source material. Joan has to battle the
deep-seated misogyny of the time, never mind that she has repeatedly proven
herself as an expert code-breaker. The character’s introductory scene when she
is almost turned away from an entrance test because it is automatically assumed
she is up for a clerical position is dynamite. Knightley and Cumberbatch play
off each other in a manner that steers clear of being cloying or saccharine and
the relationship between Turing and Joan is a well-developed one.
A surprising element of The Imitation Game, given its often
heavy subject matter and wartime setting, is its humour. There are plenty of
well-judged moments of levity, most derived from Turing’s interactions with
others without feeling like they are at the man’s expense. As Hugh Alexander,
Turing’s fellow code-breaker whose frustration is often justifiable, Matthew
Goode is appealing and comes off more likeably caddish than smarmy. Charles
Dance is also funny as the irascible Commander Denniston and Mark Strong is
believable and coolly charming as spymaster Maj. Gen. Stewart Menzies.
If there’s any particular weakness,
it would be the quality of the computer-generated imagery used to depict the
WWII battles in brief cutaways. However, this deficiency barely registers
because of how expertly the film is put together on the whole, the story
flowing naturally through those three time periods in Alan Turing’s life. It
seems there’s the danger of the film being written off by some, ironically
enough, for its pedigree and awards potential. Ignore those voices; see this,
tell everyone you know to see it. It’s a cliché, but this is a story that needs
to be told and to be heard.
Summary:
Moving, entertaining, thrilling, thought-provoking, even funny, The Imitation Game is a powerful,
well-made biopic anchored by a brilliant leading performance from Benedict
Cumberbatch.
RATING: 4.5
out of 5 Stars
Jedd
Jong
