The Imitation Game is a biopic that focuses on the story of Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), a genius mathematician that is selected to crack a German code encryption during World War II. He also is a homosexual living in a time and place where homosexuality was illegal.
With that premise, I was really looking forward to this film. I was interested in how they were going to explore the character's homosexuality, his works, and the conflict of all. You can imagine my disappointment then.
The one part of the film that got me intrigued in it took about, I don't know, 1/5th of the film. I'm disappointed that they chose to go in the direction of focusing much of the film on Turing's code decrypter. The film is more focused on the narrative and the themes, and not on the character. Granted, it does execute the storytelling pretty well. The film handles tension and the emotional peaks well. The themes on the other hand... Let's just say they repeat words/phrases throughout the film to get the theme across.
The main chunk of the homosexuality-centric storyline comes in the early school days section and the post-war section of the film. Even then, all the homosexuality stuff is swept under the rug. A character threatens to out him as a homosexual, and the problem is solved in the next scene. We get a nice isolated scene where we see him struggling with it, and the movie ends not two minutes after that. A little more focus on his character rather than his work and the film's themes would've helped the film a lot.
Benedict Cumberbatch leads the film as Alan Turing. His role isn't a complete departure from his role as Sherlock Holmes from the BBC Sherlock. He plays the isolated, brilliant loner, but he's actually homosexual in this one (unlike in Sherlock, to many of his Tumblr fans' sadness). I would like to see him be a little bit more risky with his roles in the future, but he was really good in this film. Knightley provides a good back-and-forth between her and Cumberbatch's characters. My favorite parts of the present and future sections of the film were their scenes together. The real show-stealer is, without a doubt, Alex Lawther who plays the young Alan Turing. He was just excellent, on-par with Cumberbatch, and that's great for a kid of his age. Sadly, the rest of the actors are demoted to one-note, walking plot devices on this one.
Morten Tyldum's good yet mechanical directing makes this a pretty cookie-cutter biopic that screams "Nominate me for awards." The film works well on a technical level, but it imitates a few other biopics (off the top of my head, Hollywoodland) that it doesn't really stand out.
There's no denying that The Imitation Game is a well-made film with great performances. However, a character-centric film that wasn't so mechanical and awards-desperate would've been much better.
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