The Imitation Game

Rating: 8/10 (30 November 2014)

I saw posters for this film, and then I heard about what it was about, having never watched Sherlock before, and only seeing its leading star in War Horse, I was looking forward to seeing the leading actor in a full length film, playing another genius. Based on the true story, set during the darkest days of World War II, Alan Turing (Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated Benedict Cumberbatch), educated at Cambridge University, is called into the office of Commander Denniston (Charles Dance) in Bletchley Park regarding an important job position, he is a groundbreaking thinker, and he knows that British Intelligence are trying to break the impossible Enigma Code, being used by the Nazis to transmit their secret messages. With the authorised provisions and resources from Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Turing works alongside a motley group of scholars, mathematicians, linguists, chess champions and intelligence officers, but also an advertisement goes in the newspaper to find another genius, those who can solve a crossword puzzle in under ten minutes are invited to a meeting to test their problem solving skills, and following a test they find Joan Clarke (Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated Keira Knightley). As well as seeing Turing and his team racing against time to break the "unbreakable" Enigma code, with the hand built computer machine working through the millions of possible combinations, the film also sees the other key points in Turing's life, including young teenager Alan (Alex Lawther) educated at boarding school and gaining his interest in problem solving and cryptanalysis (translating and deciphering secret codes and ciphers), and forwarding to the 1950s when Turing is arrested, with Detective Robert Nock (Rory Kinnear) investigating his crime of gross indecency. While the unending problem solving goes on Turing struggles with his own personal identity, he had particular feelings for boys when he was younger, he does love and gets engaged to Joan, but he is in fact homosexual, the only one who knows is Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), Turing does eventually tell Joan, but she does not want it to ruin whatever is between them. Finally Turing has a breakthrough with the Nazi messages, from some deciphering he and his team see that the Germans always mention "weather" and "Hitler", so they search all messages for these words, and they break the code, but they do not want to make the Germans suspicious or aware of their breakthrough, so they only mildly change the strategies that the British and ally forces have already planned. Following the end of the war, all evidence of the Enigma code work is destroyed, including the records of the people who worked on it, but in the years to come the authorities did discover that Turing was gay, which was at the time illegal, it is not seen in the film, but Turning was convicted for gross indecency, punished with chemical castration, and following this he killed himself with cyanide poisoning, the Queen however posthumously pardoned his crime in 2013/14. Also starring Allen Leech as John Cairncross, Matthew Beard as Peter Hilton, Mark Strong as Stewart Menzies, Tuppence Middleton as Helen, Steven Waddington as Superintendent Smith and Tom Goodman-Hill as Sergeant Staehl. Cumberbatch is outstanding as the charming, amusingly over thinking and credible genius, you really believe him as the brilliant, unfairly treated and now to be remembered war hero, there is also fantastic support from Knightley as his confidante and fiancée, Kinnear as the detective who investigates his sexuality, and Dance as his firm superior. I agree with critics that this film could have taken a few more risks, there is not enough about how serious a crime homosexuality was at the time, and the horrendous punishment he received, but the script is very well written, all action included makes for a convincing portrayal of the story, and you are gripped watching the team, the cogs of the machine turn and how important solving the impossible was for the success of winning the war, a fantastic wartime thriller based on a true story. It won the Oscar for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay, and it was nominated for Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Director for Morten Tyldum, Best Film Editing, Best Music for Alexandre Desplat and Best Production Design, it was nominated the BAFTAs for the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Sound and Best Film, and it was nominated the Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score. Very good!