The Imitation Game: a beautiful mind
The Imitation Game is a rare film. The sort that you enjoy watching, intrigues you but leaves you almost in tears. It does this without the use of special effects, no aliens, no screaming children just with a true story. One with an ending that is absolutely heartbreaking.
THERE COULD BE SPOILERS
This film is in a non linear narrative structure starting in the 50's with a breaking into Alan's house. The police are called but nothings stolen and Turing will not co-operate. This starts the detective to have some suspicions and open up a powder keg of information.
And then we see Alan's interview at Bletchley. He is not nice, he's awkward difficult to deal with and cannot understand people. He is unable to communicate fully due to this. Now this was played so well by Cumberbatch, it resonates especially with me due to my dyspraxia and how it affects my social interactions. He ends up working with a group of men that cannot stand him as he simply wants to create his machine that will decipher enigma.
He finally gets the ok and off he goes. Creating "Christopher" a code breaking machine that takes way too long. Remember they have a 24 hour time limit. However with everyone standing by him and with the help of Keira Knightly they work it out. Each say the germans send out a weather report each one ending with "Heil Hitler" once they work that out the machine can do the rest and slowly they realise the enormity of what they did.
Kiera Knightly as Joan a remarkable woman who can solve a difficult crossword in 5 minutes 34 seconds aggress to marry him even though he doesn't love her. And the reason being he's incredibly practical and needs her around, marrying her keeps her parents from taking her away. Another standout performance is Mark Strong as the MI6 man. Theres loads of twists and turns that I will not ruin for you here.
However this story didn't end happily. Turing was found guilty of gross indecency and given the option of hormone therapy or 2 years in prison. As he insists on keeping working on "Christopher" he chooses the former and his genius begins to fade he becomes unrecognisable and is unable to hold a pen or continue his work. A year later he committed suicide.
He was pardoned by the queen in 2013. Now he is recognised as genius once more and this film acts as a memorial. It doesn't show him dying, he simply switches off the light in the room where he keeps "Chrisopher". It's subtle, sad and proves that if you want a heartbreaking film that shows the story of am incredible man this is the one. I'm expecting oscar nominations, it's that good.
THERE COULD BE SPOILERS
And then we see Alan's interview at Bletchley. He is not nice, he's awkward difficult to deal with and cannot understand people. He is unable to communicate fully due to this. Now this was played so well by Cumberbatch, it resonates especially with me due to my dyspraxia and how it affects my social interactions. He ends up working with a group of men that cannot stand him as he simply wants to create his machine that will decipher enigma.
Turing and his men
He finally gets the ok and off he goes. Creating "Christopher" a code breaking machine that takes way too long. Remember they have a 24 hour time limit. However with everyone standing by him and with the help of Keira Knightly they work it out. Each say the germans send out a weather report each one ending with "Heil Hitler" once they work that out the machine can do the rest and slowly they realise the enormity of what they did.
Kiera Knightly as Joan a remarkable woman who can solve a difficult crossword in 5 minutes 34 seconds aggress to marry him even though he doesn't love her. And the reason being he's incredibly practical and needs her around, marrying her keeps her parents from taking her away. Another standout performance is Mark Strong as the MI6 man. Theres loads of twists and turns that I will not ruin for you here.
However this story didn't end happily. Turing was found guilty of gross indecency and given the option of hormone therapy or 2 years in prison. As he insists on keeping working on "Christopher" he chooses the former and his genius begins to fade he becomes unrecognisable and is unable to hold a pen or continue his work. A year later he committed suicide.
He was pardoned by the queen in 2013. Now he is recognised as genius once more and this film acts as a memorial. It doesn't show him dying, he simply switches off the light in the room where he keeps "Chrisopher". It's subtle, sad and proves that if you want a heartbreaking film that shows the story of am incredible man this is the one. I'm expecting oscar nominations, it's that good.
I definitely need to see this, sounds so interesting
ReplyDeleteIt's really very good, hopefully it will get the recognition it deserves come awards season
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