The Imitation Game
DIRECTOR: Morten Tyldum
CAST: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Mark Strong, Matthew Beard, Charles Dance, Allen Leech, Rory Kinnear
CLASSIFICATION: 10 GPV
RUNNING TIME: 113 minutes
RATING: ****
BENEDICT Cumberbatch is perfectly cast as mathematician and cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the man widely credited as the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence.
He is by turns awkward and confident, never overplaying his hand, turning in an understated yet powerful performance of a smart person who kept his feelings extremely bottled.
The Oscar-nominated biopic is the English language debut of Norwegian director Morten Tyldum (Headhunters, Buddy) and it features intricate but subtle production design and fast-paced dialogue (so, heed Turing when he starts the film with the words: “Are you paying attention?”).
The Oscar nomination for Editing and Music are also well deserved – there is nothing choppy about this film, scenes flow from the one into the next. Alexandre Desplat’s soundtrack goes a long way towards creating the nail-biting tension of the codebreakers trying to decrypt the Enigma machine, as well as underscoring the sadness to Turing’s life-story and the frenetic pace at which his mind moved.
The truly illuminating part of Cumberbatch’s performance is how he humanises a character who admits he is not exactly the easiest of humans to get along with – seen through a lens of modern science he displays traits of Asperger’s Syndrome.
The film not only brings Turing to life, but also pays tribute to his work, as well as giving us a glimpse into how intelligence was gleaned and used in World War II.
Much of the action is set in WWII and around Bletchley Park in Milton Keyes, the site of the UK’s then Government Code and Cypher School.
The film starts and ends in the 1950s though, and all the good Turing did is shown to be in his past. In his 50s, present Turing’s house is burgled and the police are suspicious of his behaviour because he seems like a man with many secrets. Little do they know what those secrets truly are and matters become misconstrued and prejudice ensues as a result.
Tyldum doesn’t stint on the detail, managing to cram a whole lot of information into the film, but his emphasis on creating fully rounded characters keeps it grounded and intriguing.
Mark Strong pops up as the prototype M – Stewart Menzies in his pinstripe suit and with his enigmatic manner is very different to the mathematicians, linguists and codebreakers he gathered to penetrate the Axis Powers’ secret communication.
Keira Knightly is Joan Clarke, one of the few women who rose to a prominent position among the cryptanalysts when the women who worked at Bletchley Park, though trusted, were there mostly in administrative positions. Her role highlights how much professional women struggled back then to be taken seriously, and, sadly, still do in some fields.
Clarke is the one who reminds Turing that “sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine”, the very words he uses to convince her to work with them in the first place.
Together with people like chess champion Hugh Alexander (Goode) and mathematician Jack Good (James Northcote) they try to break the Enigma code and still make sense of their lives in wartime.
Based on Andrew Hodges’s biography of Turing, the film may exaggerate some characters over others where they might not have been as prominent in real life. But this creative licence works well because the film is entertaining, engrossing, sometimes funny and even teaches you something about a person whom, it turns out, is very important to you.
After all, this is the man who invented Turing machines. Nowadays we call them computers.
If you liked The King’s Speech or The Theory of Everything, you will like this.