Engaging, but blatantly inaccurate

Rating: 5/10 (3 April 2015)

The film was enjoyable, but the writer took a lot of liberties. It portrays Turing as socially inept. He supposedly didn't want to explain his ideas to people (ostensibly because they were too complex) and he had to go it alone because nobody believed in his machine and everybody was against him. Nonsense. He was, in fact, a friendly person who was happy to explain his ideas. He headed a large team who worked collaboratively with the full support of everyone above him. (Spoiler alert) He never met the soviet agent and was never threatened to have his homosexuality exposed. His team had nothing to do with deciding how and when to use the intelligence they got from decoding Nazi communications -- that was done by the higher-ups. Nobody on his team had a brother on the ship that got sunk. His relationship with Joan didn't end that way. Finally, after his death, the police concluded that he had committed suicide, however there is good reason to believe that his death -- which contrary to the movie, didn't occur until a year after he finished serving his sentence - - was accidental. There are other inaccuracies, but these are probably the most egregious. In my opinion, if a writer wants to make up things, he should write fiction. If you are going to write a historical drama, you should keep it factual since, for most people, it will be all they'll ever know about the subject.