The Imitation Game

Another great acting performance highlights The Imitation Game, directed by Morten Tyldum. This time it’s Benedict Cumberbatch, playing yet another brilliant socially-awkward character: Alan Turing, the genius who broke the German Enigma code during WWII, thus helping to win the war, and created the world’s first computer in the process. How was Turing rewarded for being one of the greatest and most important minds in the twentieth century? That would be telling, but let’s just say the answer is not one we might expect and leads directly to Turing’s suicide nine years after the war. 

All of the acting in The Imitation Game is impeccable, with Keira Knightley doing very well as the young mathematical genius who helps Turing break the code while providing much-needed companionship, and Charles Dance and Mark Strong especially strong as the men who pull the strings behind such war efforts. 

The screenplay by Graham Moore is also very strong, with some fantastic dialogue, but the overall story is perhaps too clinically told to have the impact the film might have had. Specifically, while the story focuses on Turing before, during and after the war, and does so in a way that wisely focuses on Turing’s inner struggles, it doesn’t take us deep enough into those struggles to give us an emotional connection (i.e. the film suffers from a certain degree of superficiality throughout). 

Nevertheless, The Imitation Game is a very entertaining film that tells an incredibly important story. Another solid ***+ effort. My mug is up.