Best of the current "batch" of big-screen bios

Rating: 9/10 (14 January 2015)

You have to wonder if the executives at the Biography Channel are getting nervous.
The industry, known over decades for its "binge themes" or beating an idea to death, has brought out three blockbuster bios this year so far.
As fate would have it, I saw this one last, and can offer these comments:
* as I said in other reviews, all biographies by their nature tend to bend the rules of film. You are no longer making entertainment, you are also educating and you are paying tribute to a man or woman who deserves it (or else what is the purpose?). That's a lot of balls to juggle at once
* of the three this was the most engrossing. Add to that fact that, of the three, this was only non-original story (I have seen other bios of Truring) so that leaves us with a paradox -- how can the least original be the most interesting?
* the answer of course goes back to basics. Writing and acting. The writing is sharp, and it stays that way. The acting is to die for. Cumberbatch throws his Holmes mojo out the window and creates a Truring so memorable it will, I think, become the definitive one. And Keira Knightly (playing younger) has always had those big "quizzacle" eyes to work with, but, in my view, never had a script (about ciphers and puzzles) which gave her so much elbow room to make use of them.
Good fun.