Excellent Film.

Rating: 10/10 (9 December 2014)

The Imitation Game is a film that centers on the WWII activities of the English mathematician and cryptanalyst Alan Turing. I was already familiar with Turing from having seen an excellent play called "Breaking The Code" about 18 years ago. Alan Turing should by all rights be a commonly known figure due to his pioneering work on early computer technology which aided the allies in breaking the "unbreakable" enigma code. This code was a method of encryption used by the Germans to communicate battle plans to their military during the war. Turing was successful in creating a computer which was able to break this code and as a result millions of lives were saved and the war was shortened by about two years . Quite an amazing achievement for which he was awarded the OBE (British equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor). All of the work he was involved in on that project was kept top secret for about 50 years after WWII ended. Additionally, Turing was gay, and at the time Britain had virulently homophobic laws, and though he should have been touted as a national hero, he was persecuted under this oppressive law and forced to take female hormones in an attempt to suppress his (natural) sexual tendencies. As a result, he committed suicide within a couple years of this, and his name was effectively erased from the public record. This film shines a light on this brilliant man who was a true hero. A fantastic film. Benidict Cumberbach is outstanding as Turing, and should win many awards for this performance.