Review of The Imitation Game (2014) by Christopher E — 02 Aug 2017

A beautiful war drama about a man who literally changed history, but no one ever knew.

During the winter of 1952, British authorities entered the home of mathematician, cryptanalyst and war hero Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) to investigate a reported burglary. They instead ended up arresting Turing himself on charges of 'gross indecency', an accusation that would lead to his devastating conviction for the criminal offense of homosexuality - little did officials know, they were actually incriminating the pioneer of modern-day computing. Famously leading a motley group of scholars, linguists, chess champions and intelligence officers, he was credited with cracking the so-called unbreakable codes of Germany's World War II Enigma machine. An intense and haunting portrayal of a brilliant, complicated man, THE IMITATION GAME follows a genius who under nail-biting pressure helped to shorten the war and, in turn, save thousands of lives.

After watching this film twice, it's certainly one of the gems of 2014. It's a war drama about a man who went through so much to win a war, but his life went the opposite way of what he deserved. He was a genius, a hero at heart, and history treated him wrongly. But if it weren't for him, who knows where we'd be today. Alan Turing was a bright and brilliant man, and this movie certainly recognizes that.

In my personal opinion, this is my favorite role I've seen Benedict Cumberbatch in. I've seen him in a couple other films, but I absolutely love him here. He brings so much personality and life into the character of Alan Turing, and I feel like I have a good sense of the kind of guy he was. He wasn't the perfect guy, or the nicest, but that doesn't mean he deserved what happened to him (no spoilers). Even though he's not the best guy, he's still very easy to follow and relate to. You can see his broke heart in his eyes, and just how everything sort of weighs upon him. Him, along with the rest of the cast, all performed admirably.

The dialogue was also the highlight of this film. The dialogue was quick and witty, but it never felt forced. A lot of the dialogue had so much meaning to it, and some of the best scenes didn't even have Cumberbatch in the spotlight. There are plenty of emotional and tear jerking moments in this film that absolutely get to me and as I reflect on the events afterwards, it still plagues the back of my mind.

I feel like I learned so much about this story. This was arguably the biggest part of WWII, and I had never even heard about it until this film. Granted, I'm still young, but the secret about the Turing machine never surfaced for 50 years (I think). I felt as if this film gave great justice to the situation at hand. I learned what I needed to know, I cared about the characters, I was interested in the situation at hand, and this is a story that was meant to be told.

I guess if there's one thing I could change about this film, the runtime felt a bit too long. At a point, I thought the movie was going to end. However, it kept continuing. Although I felt that what they showed us had a lot of meaning to it, I just think it was a clash in tone, which was misleading. Having the emotion build up and holding it in for an ending that's 30 minutes away took a bit of an unnecessary toll on me. Regardless, it was still a wonderful story.

In the end, "The Imitation Game" was one of the best films of 2014, and is certainly one you don't want to miss.