Beginning in 1941, The Imitation Game introduces the 27-year-old Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), whose mathematical genius far outstrips his interpersonal skills. Stationed at Bletchley Park in the south of England, Turing leads a team of linguists, problem solvers and mathematicians whose job is to crack the unfeasibly complex communications code used by the Nazis. As conventional attempts to break the code prove fruitless, Turing proposes a radical new approach: construct a code-breaking machine – the most complex of its kind yet conceived – with the power to smash the Enigma code wide open. Turing’s bold plan brings with it a new set of pressures: his colleagues are initially sceptical of his ideas, while the Home Office are more than keen to see a quick return on their then-gigantic £100,000 investment. Director Morten Tyldum’s last film was the deliriously funny and violent thriller Headhunters, but there’s none of that film’s unpredictable mania to be found here. Based on Andrew Hodges’ book Alan Turing: The Enigma, The Imitation Game is structured a little like Milos Forman’s glossy biopic Amadeus, skipping between Turing’s middle-age, youth and work in World War II. Graham Moore’s screenplay gradually peels back the layers of its subject’s tragic life through a series of key events: his merciless bullying at boarding school and his unrequited love for a fellow student. The pressures of solving a code while hundreds die every day on the front line during the 40s. The subsequent suspicion surrounding his secretive past in the 1950s, and the efforts of an earnest detective (played by Rory Kinnear) to uncover the truth. The legion Sherlock fans who’ll no doubt form an orderly queue to watch Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game won’t be disappointed by the actor’s performance here. As enigmatic as the code he’s breaking in the opening third, Cumberbatch brings real pathos to his character later on, pulling back the curtain on a man who, at first, seems as cold-blooded and narcissistic as Holmes, but gradually reveals a vulnerable creature beneath. It’s a tragic story, for sure, blunted somewhat by The Imitation Game’s soft-focus approach. Cinematographer Oscar Faura lights much of the film with a diffuse golden light, giving it the cosy feel of a Sunday afternoon drama. The dialogue-heavy script, with some occasionally awkward lines (“Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of that do the things no one can imagine” doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue) underlines the sense that we’re not so much watching a drama about a genius betrayed by the British establishment as an episode of British period TV drama Heartbeat, or a knockabout Ealing comedy. There’s a tendency, too, to use lengthy scenes of talking-head exposition or a bad CG shot of boats and submarines when a single, powerful image will suffice. There’s one very well-handled sequence of Londoners fleeing to the safety of the London Underground to the horrible rhythmic thud of German bombs, for example, which says more about what Turing’s fighting to stop than anything else. Or the simple yet strikingly-lit and composed image, of Turing standing alone before his beloved code-breaking machine, which says so more about the way his thoughts and passions than a long mouthful of dialogue ever could. Had The Imitation Game relied more on cinematic moments such as these, it could have been a much more effective film. The Imitation Game is by no means a perfect movie, but there are isolated moments with genuine power such as these. And if Cumberbatch’s unusual star wattage brings Turing’s story to a wider audience, then that can only be a good thing. The Imitation Game is out in UK cinemas on the 14th November. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
