The Imitation Games (12A), starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley

Benedict Cumberbatch must be getting sick of playing idiosyncratic geniuses. Fresh from turns as Sherlock, Assange, Hawking, and van Gogh, the increasingly typecast actor has had a go at one of this country’s most perplexing figures: Alan Turing.

The Imitation Game tells one of the twentieth century’s most important stories: Turing’s ingenious cracking of Germany’s wartime messaging code. Turing was a troubled figure: bullied at school, impossibly bright, insular and socially incompetent. Throughout the film he is portrayed as a frazzled prodigy pushing his way up the autistic spectrum.

Enigma was a seemingly unbreakable code that even the master mathematician and cryptographist Turing failed to understand. His travails at Bletchley Park form the basis of a film that eschews some of the more controversial aspects of Turing’s life.

As endless characters remind us throughout the film, Turing was a more engaging enigma than the machine they were trying to crack. Much of this is lost in Norwegian director Morten Tyldum’s film. Turing’s troubled childhood, homosexuality, and conviction for indecency are touched upon but rarely developed. Likewise, tenuous links are drawn between the various strands of Turing’s life and his attempt to crack enigma. It is difficult to know the veracity of these strands and they arguably simplify his life into a blockbuster-sized chunk that is easily digestible with popcorn and fizzy drinks.

 

Cumberbatch is predictably brilliant as Turing and the years of practice as Holmes have clearly paid off. Throughout the film’s 115 minutes Turing is presented as a slightly more angst-ridden and significantly less charming version of Sherlock’s blueprint. Cumberbatch is undoubtedly forging a name for himself as one of his generations’ most talented actors but it would be refreshing to see him in a role that didn’t confine him to his comfort zone.

Turing’s life and his work on enigma at Bletchley Park are fascinating. Unfortunately, this film doesn’t do justice to the complexity of his story. It falls at the same hurdles that seem to afflict all British biopics: taking an intimate and peculiar story and trying to morph it into a swashbuckling blockbuster. The film would have been more successful if it had given the time and space to Turing’s more troubled and ambiguous story.

 

Biopics are fraught with difficulty. Any attempt to accurately or inaccurately represent a subject’s life will be met with condescension from one side of the argument. It is impossible to please all parties. The central problem with The Imitation Game is that it doesn’t even try. By morphing Turing’s story into a Hollywood fable we lose the colour and intrigue that made Turing such a fascinating character. His work, and his life, deserved better.