Good, but Not Oscar Worthy

Rating: 6/10 (1 April 2015)

This movie intrigued more than I initially thought it would. It is intriguing, but it is simultaneously pretty formulaic - I am not sure it really deserved its win for Best Adapted Screenplay, but I didn't hate the film.
At the soul of the movie we have a great performance by Benedict Cumberbatch, though at first he seems to borrow from his Sherlock persona in order to come across as a jerk or misunderstood man whom nobody likes. We also learn through flashbacks that he is weak- willed since he was bullied as a child, he doesn't believe in violence due to this, and that he is gay, and was fond of a childhood friend of his. Some of these flashbacks really depict Turin's back story, but some seem unnecessary to be honest.
Back to Cumberbatch's performance, he depicts being misunderstood and weak-willed very well, but towards the conclusion of this film when he is struggling with hormonal therapy it seems like a bit of a stretch. In fact, he seems to be at his best and his worst when he shows an obsessive attachment to Christopher (an obvious metaphor) before the last minutes of the movie.
The film is filled with cheesy situations/moments which brings its Oscar potential down and makes it much less of an adult film than it could have been. The scene where Mark Strong says he has known about the spy all along, the scene with one of Turin's crew saying his brother was on a ship, the caption at the end that reads "today they are called computers..."
This film still intrigued me though it was formulaic. I am fine with cinema depicting homosexuality as a struggle in films like Brokeback Mountain or Milk, but even though it was a main point in this film the scenes reflecting on Turin's homosexuality (minus some good flashbacks) seemed to be over-dramatized.