Thursday, December 25, 2014

The Imitation Game

The Imitation Game is, as you know, a widely anticipated movie with some mixed reviews, but mostly good, just like this one. If you don't know what the enigma machine is and what it did, well, you are poorly educated and shouldn't go to movies at all because you will think everything you see in every movie is true anyway. Here is what is true- Alan Turing was brilliant with a dose of functional autism and his invention, a computer that cracked the enigma code, saved millions of lives and shortened WWII. Mr.Turing was also a homosexual at a time when that meant jail or a "chemical castration" with estrogen shots. Alan Turing was one of those  British boys who did not do well at boarding school with the bullies and dumbasses that seem to frequent those places. The movie doesn't side step that. It is told in flashbacks. Now, you should read up on what the machine is and why it and Turing's work to solve it were important before you go, because that is what gives the film the minimal suspense it has. The movie takes liberties with the roles of the others at Bletchley though. It adds a few characters and gives one a job as Soviet spy (which did not actually exist). I sort of resented that since it was totally unnecessary to add that to the movie- Hollywood is incapable of sticking to the story in biopics. Dumb. Now people who can't read will think that really happened that way. And, somewhere in heaven, Joan Clarke is looking down and marveling that Kiera Knightly is playing her. If they make a movie about me, I'd say "I'll settle for Kiera Knightly"- especially since someone FINALLY broke her of that annoying pout she'd make to show emotion.  It is a very touching film. You'd have to be a tad cold in spots of your heart not to shed just ONE tear at the end. Not because Turing was gay- but because it really must be a special hell to be brilliant. I'll never know.
Anyway, the movie can be slow in spots. It is the last half hour that really is best. And the other moral question about who lives and dies, well, it is a sad dilemma indeed.