An historical film with contemporary resonances

Rating: Null/10 (24 May 2015)

What makes this such an exceptional film is the combination of a compelling narrative with an outstanding central performance. It is the true story of how the brilliant but eccentric British mathematics genius Alan Turing led a small, but exceptionally talented. team that managed to break the Germans' Enigma code which shortened the Second World War by years. Benedict Cumberbatch gives a wonderfully nuanced display as the reclusive and tortured scientist. A very creditable showing by Keira Kinighley should be acknowledged and Charles Dance and Mark Strong are always spot on.
Norwegian director Morten Tyldum and American writer Graham Moore eschew straight-line plotting, deploying three alternating time-lines: Turing's time as a desperately lonely child at boarding school, his wartime service in Hut 8 at the top secret Bletchley Park decoding centre, and his post-war arrest for an act of "gross indecency" with another man. It seems amazing now that the British state could have convicted, and arguably sent to his death, someone who made such a phenomenal contribution to the defeat of Hitler.
This is a film which, important though it is for reviving the reputation of an unlikely war hero who for so long was forgotten or maligned, speaks to us today, both because of our (fortunately) very different attitude to homosexuality now and of contemporary developments in computing and artificial intelligence/