The Imitation Game tells the story of Alan Turing, a WW2 genius mathematician hired by MI6 to help crack Enigma, an “unbreakable” Nazi code. Directed by Morten Tyldum, Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Alan Turing, Keira Knightley plays Joan Clarke, his wife, and Allen Leech, Matthew Goode, Mark Strong, Rory Kinnear, and Matthew Beard all play supporting characters.
Genre : War/Drama
Age : 13+
My Rating : 8/10
Summary : In 1951, two policemen, Nock and Staehl, investigate the mathematician Alan Turing after an apparent break-in at his home. Nock suspects something is amiss and interrogates Turing at the police station. During his interrogation, Turing tells of his time working at Bletchley Park during the Second World War.
In 1928, the young Alan is unhappy and bullied at boarding school. He develops a friendship with Christopher Morcom, who is the one who introduces him to cryptography. Alan develops romantic feelings for him quickly.
When Britain declares war on Germany in 1939, Alan travels to Bletchley Park. Under Commander Alastair Denniston, he joins the cryptography team made of talented men like himself : Hugh Alexander, John Cairncross, Peter Hilton, Keith Furman and Charles Richards. They are trying to analyze the Enigma machine, which the Nazis use to send coded messages.
Alan is difficult to work with, and considers his colleagues inferior. He works alone to develop a machine, much to the annoyance of his coworkers. After Denniston refuses to fund construction of the machine, Alan writes to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who puts Alan in charge of the team and funds the machine. Alan promptly fires Furman and Richards and places a difficult crossword in newspapers to find replacements. Joan Clarke, a Cambridge graduate, passes Alan’s test but her parents will not allow her to work with the male cryptographers, because it is unseemly. Alan arranges for her to live and work with the female clerks who intercept the messages to appease her parents. Taking Joan’s advice, Alan begins trying to befriend his colleagues.
Alan finishes his machine, which he names Christopher, but it cannot determine the Enigma encryption settings quickly enough. The Germans reset them each day. Denniston orders it to be destroyed and Alan fired, but the other cryptographers threaten to leave if Turing goes. After Joan tells Alan her parents are forcing her to leave, Alan proposes to her, which she accepts. During their reception, Cairncross tells Alan he knows he’s a homosexual, and advises him to not tell anyone. After a conversation with a female clerk about messages she receives, Turing has an epiphany. He realizes he can program the machine to decode words he already knows exist in certain messages. After he recalibrates the machine, it quickly decodes a message and the team celebrates. Alan realises they cannot act on every decoded message or the Germans will realise Enigma has been broken.
Alan discovers that Cairncross is a Soviet spy. When Alan confronts him, Cairncross argues that the Soviets are allies working for the same goals. He threatens to reveal Alan’s sexuality if he is exposed. When the MI6 agent Stewart Menzies tells Alan that Joan is in jail because she is the Soviet spy, Alan confessesess that Cairncross is the spy. Menzies tells Alan he knew this already and planted the messages Cairncross leaks to the Soviets for British benefit. Fearing for her safety, Alan tells Joan to leave Bletchley Park. When she refuses, he tells her he is gay. Joan says she always suspected but insists they would have been happy together anyway. Alan then lies, telling her he never cared for her, and only used her for her cryptography skills. Heartbroken, she decides to stay anyway, deeming this the single most important task she’ll undertake. After the war, Menzies tells the cryptographers to destroy their work and that they can never see one another again or share what they have done.
In the 1950s, Alan is convicted of gross indecency and, instead of jail time, undergoes chemical castration so he can continue his work. Joan visits him in his home and witnesses his physical and mental deterioration. She comforts him and they do a crossword puzzle together.
The epilogue reveals that after a year of government-mandated hormonal therapy, Alan committed suicide on June 7th, 1954. It also tells us that Christopher died over holiday and never came back to school. He had bovine tuberculosis and knew he was going to die, but never told Alan. In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted him a posthumous Royal Pardon, honoring his work which saved millions of lives.
My Thoughts : I rate this movie an 8/10. I liked the plot, the characters were likeable and engaging, and it was well written. The only issue is that the movie was extremely inaccurate about Alan Turing. Firstly, it depicts him as being somewhat autistic and severely socially awkward. He struggles to understand jokes and doesn’t fit in with his colleagues. In reality, Turing was an extrovert and very popular, especially with children. The film also hides Alan’s sexuality. The only time it is openly mentioned is when Cairncross tells Alan he knows he is gay. Actually, Turing was open about his sexuality and even made advances towards other men. Also, the film makes it seem like Alan invented the machine by himself and his colleagues just helped a little. In fact, Turing had lots of help with his machine and it was never actually called Christopher. But all in all, this is a good movie, though it is a bit sad to watch.
