The Imitation Game

There were a handful of films I saw in 2014, the stories of which I did not know completely before having seen the film. Two such films were Tim Burton's "Big Eyes" and the film about Stephen Hawking, "The Theory of Everything." Another film, the story of which I was almost completely unfamiliar, was "The Imitation Game," the story of mathematician, Alan Turing, the creator of essentially the first computer. Said computer was used to detect Nazi war ships during World War II. Benedict Cumberbatch ("Sherlock," "Star Trek Into Darkness," "August: Osage County") delivers a fantastic performance as Turing. Keira Knightley provides a standout performance as Joan Clarke, one of Turing's colleagues, charged with creating anything that can provide the Allies an advantage during the war. The mutual admiration between Turing and Clarke is evident, admiration as colleagues. Knightly plays Clarke as being aware of Turing sexuality, perhaps not at first, but eventually she seems to be aware that Turing is gay.

I appreciated the fact that Turing's sexuality was not used against him as far as the script goes. I never found myself thinking much about it except for the few scenes throughout the film which take place in the 1950's and during a fantastic, emotional powerhouse of an ending to the film. Turing's accomplishments, in the film, are not overshadowed by his sexuality, nor should they be. I found myself learning a lot about Turing's accomplishments and the implications of his accomplishments to the British war effort. I suppose I should be more aware of Turing's work, however, since I was not, I feel my ignorance was to my advantage as events unfolded in the film. This is one of the very few times in my life my ignorance has worked to my advantage. The conclusion of the film angered me immensely, but in a good way, the way a well-written, well-paced film will make me react if such a reaction is dictated by the script or the story. The always welcome, Charles Dance, who you may recognize as Tywin Lannister from "Game of Thrones" and from the amazingly dull 2013 "Patrick," remake (I'll excuse that one--by the way, the original "Patrick" from 1978, directed by Richard Franklin is a great horror film) is very good as Commander Denniston, the man in charge of Turing and his cohorts charged with creating sometime to infiltrate the Nazis.

"The Imitation Game" is an exceptionaly well-crafted film without a bit of false emotion or forced sentimentality. All the emotions I felt throughout the course of the film were a result of the performances, directed by Norweigan filmmaker, Morten Tyldum and the taut script by Graham Moore, his first feature-length screenplay credit. Well done, sir! The film is well deserving of its Best Picture nomination during the 2014 Oscars. It, and the other seven nominees, will likely be defeated by "Boyhood," however, when it is released on Netflix, Redbox, and streaming, I highly recommended you take a look at "The Imitation Game."