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| Benedict Cumberbatch stares you right in the face on the poster for Morten Tyldum's The Imitation Game |
The Imitation Game is the much-hyped top-grossing independent movie of 2014, 8 times Oscar-nominated and starring one of the most happening actors alive right now, England's Benedict Cumberbatch (Hawking (2004), TVM).
Alan Turing is the arrogant, quaint mathematician, who claims that he will build a machine that can crack the Germans' enigma code during the distressful time of WWII. As Turing fights for his project, there is another code to be broken as well: the code of Turing himself.
I'll let it be said right off that the film is another Oscar favorite this year (like Birdman (2014)), which doesn't live up to its hype, and if it isn't clear to most people now, perhaps, then I think it will be clear in a few years, once the awards season dust has settled, so to speak.
The Imitation Game is a good period war movie that lives on mainly two qualities: Firstly, the great story at its core: Turing. Secondly, Cumberbatch's serious, transmorphing performance as him. While lots in the man's life has been polished and made easier to understand for a mass audience in 114 minutes' time, Cumberbatch has on the other hand been allowed to run wild with a deep-felt and unabashed characterization, which is the film's main selling point, and will quite likely earn him his first Oscar statuette in a couple of weeks' time. [Post-note: It didn't: Eddie Redmayne instead won for portraying Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (2014).]
Other distinguished performers here include secondaries Rory Kinnear (Cuban Fury (2014)) as the detective that gets a whiff of Turing's secrets, Mark Strong (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)) as his superior Menzies and young Alex Lawther (X+Y (2014)) as young Turing, who is stunningly close to Cumberbatch's portrait.
In the up-played part as Turing's friend Joan Clarke, Keira Knightley (Pride & Prejudice (2005)) does well but is basically second banana. - Her Oscar-nomination for this supporting performance (her second after Pride & Prejudice) is a bit hard to understand, and definitely shouldn't wind up giving her her first statuette.
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| Benedict Cumberbatch by the cinematically enlarged, redesigned 'Bombe' decode machine for Morten Tyldum's The Imitation Game |
The details:
The film is based on the first sold feature script of young screenwriter Graham Moore (Pirates vs. Ninjas (2005), short), who also, amazingly, has been Oscar-nominated for this job. (The script was a Blacklist favorite in 2011.) The complexity of Turing and his math gets washed over here and cooked down to a kind of motto which is repeated by different characters at different times in the film. But the story of the film and its success is so good that scores of audiences and critics won't recognize its dubious reconstruction of Turing, which you can read about towards the bottom of this page.
Together with a visual and score side (by Alexander Desplat, also Oscar-nominated) that both are neat but nothing particularly outstanding, Imitation Game comes off somewhat dusty and old-fashioned, perhaps also because it follows the towering Oscar-winner of last year, the sensuous, emotionally overpowering masterpiece 12 Years a Slave (2013).
But even comparing it to more related fare like Ron Howard's great mathematician biopic A Beautiful Mind (2001) or the recent British home run period biopic The King's Speech (2010), The Imitation Game simply falls short.
It is the English-language debut of Norwegian director Morten Tyldum (Headhunters/Hodejegerne (2011)), who should have given more of a damn of all the well-meaning forces undoubtedly securing that he "got it right" here with this heavy, important material, and instead have given us a bit wilder version of Turing's life. Incredibly, though, even Tyldum is Oscar-nominated for his direction.
At its core, the film presents a startling and incredible story; at its best, it is about how much of the 'great war' and the fate of much of Europe was controlled by mathematicians and statistics in a room in England. - That is new to the screen and mind-bending 'news' to boot. Turing's sad end, condemned for his homosexuality, ending his own life, becomes a a tragic end-note instead of a serious aftermath, the natural 3rd act for the film about his life, which might have made it excell. This doesn't happen.
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| Oscar-nominated, beautiful Keira Knightley, second banana in Morten Tyldum's The Imitation Game |
Watch the trailer here
Cost: 14 mil. $
Box office: 134.6 mil. $ (and counting)
= Huge hit
[The Weinstein Company struck gold once again by purchasing the movie for 7 mil. $ for US distribution (the reportedly biggest sum paid for a foreign film ever), where it has made 69.8 mil. $ so far (52 % of the total gross). It premiered at Telluride, played at Toronto, and premiered in Europe at the BFI London Film Festival. It still has just over a dozen countries yet to premiere in, including, most prominently, Japan.]
What do you think of The Imitation Game?
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