You’re likely thinking that if I am doing a review of a movie, it’s going to be one that appeals to nerds like me. That isn’t the case. The Imitation Game is very engaging movie that will reach a variety of audiences and may even leave you in tears by the end of it.
The Imitation Game revolves around the groundbreaking computer scientist, mathematician, and and cytologist Alan Turing with Benedict Cumberbatch playing Turing in a role that I believe will earn him an Oscar nomination because of how deep and layered his performance is. You’ll watch as Turing is recruited into Britain’s top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park to do the impossible. Crack the Enigma code which Nazi Germany was using to send messages to their military assets in the field. This is where you discover how brilliant Turing was as he developed a machine to crack the code. But you’ll also discover how socially awkward he was, as well as the fact that British society pretty much destroyed his life because he was a homosexual. Something he was only recently pardoned for posthumously.
Another thing that will stand out to you is the performance of Keira Knightley who plays Joan Clarke who is someone who should be a role model for any woman who wants to get into science or technology. Turing fights to get her onto the team to crack Enigma by any means at his disposal and in return, Clarke displays undying loyalty to him. Knightley does a masterful job playing Clarke as and I suspect that she too may get an Oscar nod for this performance as she gives a very emotionally complex performance that made my wife cry when we saw the film.
In terms of historical accuracy, which is usually a big deal for me, this movie does have some misses. For example, in the movie the machine that Turing creates was called “Christopher” after a child that he went to school with whom he had a crush on. In reality, the machine was named Bombe and he wasn’t the principal designer. Another miss is the fact that Turing is portrayed as having either Autism or Asperger Syndrome and is so awkward that he is socially isolated. From all accounts, this may not be accurate as he did have close friends and while he was “odd” it is not clear if having either of the above conditions was the cause of it. Finally, the number of people working on cracking Enigma was in the thousands and not a small group of people as the movie depicts. Having said all of that, none of this detracted from my enjoyment of the movie. Also, it makes the movie far more accessible to a broader audience and not just to nerds like me who know the story of Alan Turing backwards and forwards.
The Imitation Game is in theaters now. If you want to see a movie that you will enjoy on multiple levels, this is it. I highly recommend it.