At the end of every calender year, movie studios flood theaters with biopics that could possibly garner attention during award season. Martin Luther King Jr. (Selma), Stephen Hawking (The Theory of Everything) and Margaret Keane (Big Eyes) were just a few of the historical icons to be given the docudrama treatment in the latter stages of 2014. While the aforementioned films all do a commendable job of honoring the lives and accomplishments of their subjects, its The Imitation Game, which chronicles the much lesser known story of Alan Turing, that stands out above the rest of last year's crowded fact-based drama field.
For those who are unaware, Turing was a British cryptologist and mathematician employed by the British military that broke Enigma, the secret code the Nazi's used to communicate with one another during World War II, in 1942. The Engima Machine was revolutionary as it was a computer-like machine that reset its text symbols every 24 hours so enemies couldn't decode their messages or location. To crack the code, Turing spent over a year building a machine that could decipher and, eventually discover patterns in the Nazi messages.
Turing and his colleague's contributions were essential in helping the Allied forces locate and strategically attack Nazi convoys, which led to Adolf Hitler's downfall and the eventual end of the war in 1945. Until the early 2000's when the classified World War II documents were made public, no one outside of the British government and armed forces even knew that Enigma had been broken by the Allies.
The Imitation Game doesn't stray too far from the traditional biopic formula, but that doesn't stop it from being a riveting piece of cinema. I knew absolutely nothing about Turing going into this film, so in addition to being a thoroughly engaging film, this also served as a fascinating and important history lesson for me. Turing's life inside and outside of World War II was full of adversity, and director Morten Tyldum and screenwriter Graham Moore made sure they squeezed every possible ounce of excitement and conflict out of Turing's story. Though the film contains no action sequences, it has the same level of edge-of-your-seat suspense as the best World War II films. There's countless numbers of times throughout the film where the tension is ramped up to heartbeat-increasing levels of intensity. A film that's mostly based around numbers and equations could've been quite dull, but The Imitation Game never loses sight of the high stakes of Turing's work, and that ensures that film never becomes anything less than gripping.
The craftsmanship behind the camera and pacing of the film is top-notch, but it's Benedict Cumberbatch's performance as Turing that serves as the heart and soul of The Imitation Game. Cumberbatch plays Turing as a flawed genius whose arrogance made him impossible to like and whose intellect made him impossible not to respect. While Cumberbatch is excellent throughout, it's the post WWII-scenes where Turing is persecuted for indecency due to his homosexuality, and he's forced to undergo hormonal therapy (also known as chemical castration) where he really shines. Cumberbatch's vulnerability and understated emotion makes the last couple of scenes gut-wrenching to watch. It's a terrific, incredibly human performance that further solidifies Cumberbatch's standing as one of the fastest rising stars in all of film. The Imitation Game is an enthralling watch that lives up to its award-contending pedigree while also educating the masses on the legacy of a largely unheralded man who's accomplishments made a monumental impact on the history of the world.
4/5 Stars
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