On His Majesty's Secret Service

Rating: 9/10 (26 April 2020)

An interesting companion to Michael Powell's 'The Small Back Room'. This is an engrossing introduction to the life and ignominious death of 'fragile narcissist' Alan Turing, with Benedict Cumberbatch of course terrific in the lead.
Rooted in Turing's work at Bletchley Park and sliding backwards to his awkward schooldays in the twenties and forwards to his harassment by the authorities during the homophobic early fifties (when his valuable contribution to the war effort was still a state secret). It could have done with a bit less of the sweeping photography and Alexandre Desplat's twee score of the sort recent films set more than fifty years ago are increasingly prone to.