The Imitation Game (2014)

*** out of ****

There are always a lot of films in release that are entertaining, and some are game-changing.  And occasionally there is a film that is historic – one that can change the way people think and even possibly make some headway in righting things that were wrong.  “The Imitation Game” is one of those.

In 1939 the Nazis had an encryption device that they used to send all military communications called “Enigma”.  It was such a radical development in espionage that it was believed that the encryption could never be solved.  The Nazis changed the machine settings daily, which had 159,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible outcomes.  Even if the Allies had an Engima machine (which they did), unless they knew which of the encryption settings to use on a particular day, they couldn't decipher any of the messages.

Enter Alan Turing, a British mathematician who led a team of cryptologists in attempting to solve Engima.  Turing was not well liked by his team, being an egomaniac and lacking in social graces, but the team eventually came to understand that he was a true genius and their best hope of accomplishing their goal.  Turing believed that only “a machine could defeat a machine” he began developing a whole new type of technology to break the codes.  What he did essentially was build the first computer.  That and a lucky break, stumbling across a sort of Rosetta Stone in the Nazi communications, allowed them to succeed and eventually become key elements of winning the war.

All very interesting and exciting.  But that isn't what I found important about the movie, despite it's terrific entertainment value.

Turing was gay.  Some of his colleagues knew it, and some of his personal friends.  For the most part, these people never let it get in the way of their relationships with him, but there were elements of the military that hated his lack of respect for the chain of command and would have used it against him, so he had always to be extremely careful about his behavior.  Especially when you consider that at the time (and until the 1960s) Britain had “Decency Laws” that made any acts of homosexuality illegal.  Punishment for conviction was prison, or hormone treatments designed to eliminate sexual urges.  In the film Turing describes it as “chemical castration”.

Some years after the war, this is what Turing was put through, after his home was burgled by a former lover.  And tragically, he committed suicide (though there is some real life dispute over whether he killed himself or was murdered, though the film does not touch upon this).  His military clearance was revoked and he was publicly shamed.

“The Imitation Game” does not deliberately set out to clear his good name, but I believe it did so rather admirably.  Though they don't pull any punches about Turing's personality, they show the unbelievable value of his contributions to the war effort, and treat him with respect.  Benedict Cumberbatch is absolutely wonderful as Turing, hitting just the right note between “insufferable jackass” and “misunderstood genius”.  Over the past few years Cumberbatch  has gone from someone I didn't know about at all to someone whose performances I now always look forward to.  And for this film he is nominated for the Best Actor award, and I believe I will be pulling for him to win.

The world wouldn't have changed if this film had never been made, but the word could be radically different if it's subject matter had never existed.  And in trying to make more people aware of Alan Turing and his accomplishments, it is one small step in making whatever amends are possible for the injustices thrust upon him.  This is a wonderful movie about an important man.  Highly recommended.