Alan Turing: saved millions of lives through artificial intelligence, and killed by human stupidity...

Rating: 8/10 (8 May 2017)

World War II wasn't won on the battlefields but on the field of intelligence as information was the nerve of the war to the point the Allies not only needed German information but to let false ones leak from "spies" or arrests in order to mislead the Axis. Secret as well as human intelligence were involved but WWII allowed a third form of intelligence to rise.
When Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician played by Benedict Cumberbatch, is applying to a job in Bletchey Park, things don't go as well as expected, his commander Denniston (Charles Dance) opens the door, ready to throw this cocky self-absorbed prick away, Turing utters one word: Enigma, and Denniston closes the door. And I was enthralled already by the premise because Enigma was probably the only name I remembered from a 2000's documentary series about how the world war was (really won) and I knew Enigma was beaten by the ancestor of our modern computers.
I'm a math buff and a real nerd who loves crosswords and plays on words, so I could relate to Turing who took Enigma as an intellectual challenge, on which millions of lives were pending. The Germans had made a machine that could encrypt codes made of complex and apparently random sequences of letters and with a new coding system each day, which makes a combination of billions and billions of possibilities to work on every day and after midnight, having to get back from scratch, over and over again. Even by hiring people working on different codes without stopping, day and night, the amount of time required to break the codes would be counted in millenniums.
Alan Turing leads team that includes a champion chess player Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode) and later, a crossword prodigy Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), but only he knew it would more than human minds to break Enigma, his project was to create an artificial intelligence, a universal machine to do the job at faster speed than human brain, imitating our brains process, our maybe improving them. The film chronicles the process that allowed him to get to decrypt the code and while it works on the thriller level, there's more to appreciate, "The Imitation Game" is not just a study on math and information but on fascinating man who finally gets his long overdue recognition.
While striking as an individualistic snob, Alan Turing gets progressively more complex as we get hints of his past experiences with bullying and a growing childhood romance that leaves no doubt about Turing's sexuality. In fact, it is very fascinating that his passion for cryptography came from the 'I love you' messages he sent to his friend, as if math wasn't just a passion, but an area of total freedom, a mirror of personal truth where he could express himself to the fullest. He had made math his own world, but only with the value of team-working, he could overcome the obstacles, including the patronizingly antagonistic attitude of Denniston.
But I didn't care much for these 'dramatic' bits that, while not unbelievable, were not worthy of such a complex personality, I doubt that Denniston could really order to destroy the machine or if he submitted that deadline. The film also suffers from similarly doubtful moments: I couldn't believe Joan Clarke wouldn't want to join the team, I mean didn't a MI6 official tell them that they were serving the country? She was just contemptibly dismissed by a nosy clerk who took her for a secretary and now, she wouldn't take part to a project because her parents thought it wasn't correct? The film didn't need these moments, Turing's story was enough good material.
I must admit I was first perplex about the part involving his sexuality but it became apparent that this was a part of Turing's life that couldn't be overlooked because it highlighted the tragedy of a man who saved millions of peoples' lives but never got the credit he deserved, on the contrary, he faced a public indignity because of a sexual scandal, which indirectly lead him to suicide. That a man who saved people, who should be seen as a benefactor of humanity, had his legacy ignored for years made me realize two things: math are too abstract and people believe what they see, virtually, Turning saved people but no one could materialize it, to measure up the glory of his work.
There's a magnificent moment where the code is broken and when his friend is ready to jump at a phone and prevent a ship bombing, Turing stops him. If they change the course of the war right now, Nazis will immediately cancel Enigma and annihilate their years of research. That's a subtlety that is extremely hard to accept, sacrificing thousands of people, to save millions, or to shorten the war, one could say that Turing let British people die, but maybe this act itself has saved millions others. But human intelligence is too blind to see it, what a tragic irony that the man who saved millions of people with artificial intelligence was sacrificed on the altar of human stupidity.
But the film at least respect our intelligence and says a lot without words, two standout moments I got at the first viewing: Alan tells Joan about the machine's name, Christopher, something is odd and she doesn't mention it, and yes, it took me a few seconds to realize that I expected a woman's name. And that was a brilliant hint of Alan's homosexuality before the revelation. A second moment is when he's in London train station with Joan and mothers and soldiers stare at him with disdain, he's obviously seen like a coward. How ironic that they'll never know this man is as heroic as them.
"The Imitation Game" is an imperfect film but from the subject it handles and its importance, it is as highly recommendable as if it was a masterpiece.