The Turing Truth
As a boy Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) was bullied at school but he also made a good friend who introduced him to the world of cryptography. Years later his skills as a code breaker and maths genius leads him to Bletchley Park, where despite Commander Denniston (Charles Dance) becoming exasperated by Alan's arrogance has him as part of his team to try and break the Enigma machine. It is not a smooth ride for Alan and even after the war he still finds life a rocky ride as he is forced to hide his homosexuality.
Whilst many have gone wild about Benedict Cumberbatch in recent years I am not one who has jumped on the Cumberbatch band wagon. But after watch "The Imitation Game" I have to say that it is one of those performances which define a career, a performance which people will remember him for. And to be honest after watching Cumberbatch as Alan Turing giving him an almost of another world quality as he struggles with human interaction and what people really mean by what they say no one is going to play Turing to this level again. Now in fairness Cumberbatch is surrounded by a stellar cast but he is the star and they all play off of him with Charles Dance doing well to bring just the right touch of humour to his exasperation as Commander Denniston.
But to be honest everything about "The Imitation Game" is of an incredibly high standard and as a production it is nostalgically beautiful. Okay in some ways saying a bombed street is artistically pleasing is wrong but it is a case that visually this is an eye catching movie, rich in detail to the point you feel an urge to watch it again to soak in all the design elements because first time around you are busy taking in the story and the performances.
And so on to the subject of the story and what a fine juggling job the production have done in delivering this multi layered story. Yes we have the juggling of the seemingly three stories of Alan Turning's life as a child, his troubles after the war and of course working on the Enigma machine. But then we have all these other layers from there being a Russian spy at Bletchley, Alan's relationship to Joan, his hiding of his homosexuality and much more which creates a storyline as rich as the movie's design. And again once you have watched "The Imitation Game" the first time, even whilst you are watching it, you get a sense that you need to watch it again to pick up on all the layers.
What this all boils down to is that "The Imitation Game" is a pretty good movie, maybe not quite a classic which will work as well in 20 years as it does now but certainly a movie which not only ticks a lot of boxes but brings those boxes together to create a captivating movie on many levels.
