A Homosexual Mind

Rating: 8/10 (11 March 2015)

A WWII influenced atmosphere. Protagonist, a young mathematical genius, sociopathic and emotionally restrained. Great promise and struggle with underachievement. A popular and charismatic rival who later becomes a friend. A woman who starts as a follower but later moves to the center of the protagonist's attention. A major revelation thanks to flirting with girls in a bar. A final breakthrough and the major success. Turn to the worse, the dark times and the dark secrets. Loneliness and impotence, with the only friend living inside your head. Acceptance of own fate. And finally a widespread recognition and a legacy that's hard to overestimate.
It's funny how similar the stories can sometimes be. Is it because the filmmakers simply want to use the same instruments? Or because the people on whose lives those movies are based, brilliant but controversial, are bound by their fate to pass through such hardships to fulfil their destiny and find regard for their achievements? One can hardly tell. And maybe we shouldn't even dig deep into it, leaving it stay as a magic of the cinematographic art.
As for 'The Imitation Game' itself, it is a very solid movie, gritty and dramatic, just as a life of Alan Turing itself, whose work made a huge influence on the course of the World War II, helping save millions of lives, but who ended up prosecuted in his own country for something that is now considered, if not a norm then, at least, a matter of one's private business. And while it may sometimes feel that the movies covering the WWII period are too aplenty already and that the filmmakers should move on and look for some fresher and more burning topics, films like 'The Imitation Game' allow us to see a whole epoch via the eyes of a single man, feel not only the world as it was but also what it was for real people to be a part of it, to live in it.
But despite having an Oscar-winning screenplay, this film would not be what it is without the people who act it out. Benedict Cumberbatch may be hugely overrated and overpraised, but here he proved to have enough spirit, emotional charge and diversity to be really considered a great actor. Keira Knightley deserves the similar regard for portraying her character, but one has already come to expect that ability to make a teeth-clenching delivery of characters of any complexity from her. And although you can clearly see that she's not a young girl anymore, it seems that maturity only enriches her acting talents.
Maybe 'The Imitation Game' is not an all-time masterpiece for which the last year would be remembered, but it's still pretty much worth watching. Even though it's about mathematicians, it's not school-boring, and after watching it you might even find more value in the everyday things that surround you, like having no government control over your intimate life or having digital gadgets that do not occupy a whole room or take forever to load a web page or play back a song.