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The above quote anchors the life of Alan Turing, as told by The Imitation Game. The quote makes a reference as to how people that are underestimated are sometimes the ones that end up doing really great things. However, it seems that the film takes some, uhh, liberties in portraying how "underestimated" Turing was at the time, and that's just one of the many liberties the film takes.
The film follows Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) through three different times in his life: his teenage years at boarding school, his time serving the British government during World War II, and his secluded adulthood after the war, in the early 1950s. The story moves back and forth between these three timelines as we see how he was, how he is, and how he would be; at least according to screenwriter Graham Moore.
The main focus of the story is on Turing's work on cracking the Nazi's Enigma code. Turing, who is portrayed as socially awkward, somewhat egocentric, and disliked by most people, is assigned to work with a team under the strict supervision of Commander Denniston (Charles Dance). At first, Turing and his work are dismissed and rejected by everyone around him, which goes back to the above quote, and how he eventually ends up cracking the code.
Another significant focus of the story lies on Turing's sexuality, and his relationship with a young Christopher Morcom during his school years, and with Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), a cryptoanalyst that works close to his team during World War II. Him being a homosexual adds another layer to the above quote since this also added to him being dismissed by others.
Unfortunately, despite some of these broad strokes being accurate, a huge amount of what we see in the film is made up. Turing was not that socially awkward, there's no evidence he was bullied at school, he wasn't the first to crack German codes, he wasn't the sole inventor of the "cracking" machine, he had a good working relationship with his team, Denniston was supportive of him, and although there was a Russian spy at Bletchley Park, there is no evidence that they interacted. So, yeah, pretty much 80% of the film.
I know that films aren't meant to be documentaries, but even if we were to take it as a fictional account, the film follows the familiar beats of most biopics. Even Cumberbatch's portrayal seems like Oscar low-hanging fruit, considering that there is no evidence that Turing behaved like a "1940s Sheldon Cooper", but yeah, I guess that "sells". Still, the film is not awful, most of the performances are pretty good, and there are moments that work. So even if you can't imagine the film working for all the reasons above, to some extent, it does and there might be something for some people in there.
Grade:
THE IMITATION GAME
(2014, Tyldum)
A film about an inventor
(2014, Tyldum)
A film about an inventor
"Sometimes it's the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine."
The above quote anchors the life of Alan Turing, as told by The Imitation Game. The quote makes a reference as to how people that are underestimated are sometimes the ones that end up doing really great things. However, it seems that the film takes some, uhh, liberties in portraying how "underestimated" Turing was at the time, and that's just one of the many liberties the film takes.
The film follows Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) through three different times in his life: his teenage years at boarding school, his time serving the British government during World War II, and his secluded adulthood after the war, in the early 1950s. The story moves back and forth between these three timelines as we see how he was, how he is, and how he would be; at least according to screenwriter Graham Moore.
The main focus of the story is on Turing's work on cracking the Nazi's Enigma code. Turing, who is portrayed as socially awkward, somewhat egocentric, and disliked by most people, is assigned to work with a team under the strict supervision of Commander Denniston (Charles Dance). At first, Turing and his work are dismissed and rejected by everyone around him, which goes back to the above quote, and how he eventually ends up cracking the code.
Another significant focus of the story lies on Turing's sexuality, and his relationship with a young Christopher Morcom during his school years, and with Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), a cryptoanalyst that works close to his team during World War II. Him being a homosexual adds another layer to the above quote since this also added to him being dismissed by others.
Unfortunately, despite some of these broad strokes being accurate, a huge amount of what we see in the film is made up. Turing was not that socially awkward, there's no evidence he was bullied at school, he wasn't the first to crack German codes, he wasn't the sole inventor of the "cracking" machine, he had a good working relationship with his team, Denniston was supportive of him, and although there was a Russian spy at Bletchley Park, there is no evidence that they interacted. So, yeah, pretty much 80% of the film.
I know that films aren't meant to be documentaries, but even if we were to take it as a fictional account, the film follows the familiar beats of most biopics. Even Cumberbatch's portrayal seems like Oscar low-hanging fruit, considering that there is no evidence that Turing behaved like a "1940s Sheldon Cooper", but yeah, I guess that "sells". Still, the film is not awful, most of the performances are pretty good, and there are moments that work. So even if you can't imagine the film working for all the reasons above, to some extent, it does and there might be something for some people in there.
Grade: