The Imitation Game—Movie Review

by Peter J. O'Connell

The Imitation Game. Opened: Nov. 28, 2014. Running time: 114 mins. Rated: PG-13 for some sexual references, mature thematic material and historical smoking.

One of Hitler's most effective weapons in the early years of World War II was Enigma, a machine that seemed to make the German code system unbreakable. The workings of Enigma, in fact, came to be dubbed the “Ultra Secret,” even though the British had been able to obtain a smuggled version of the machine. However, a little-known, socially awkward Cambridge mathematician solved the Ultra Secret and made it possible to decipher the German codes. His name was Alan Turing. The Imitation Game is his story, and it's both a triumphant and a tragic one.

After war broke out in 1939, Britain established a codebreaking operation on an estate known as Bletchley Park. The various experts gathered there were frustrated by Enigma because the machine, reset daily, had a potential for creating 159 million million (!!) encryptions, and it would take 20 million years to test all of them and obtain the key to the German code system.

Alan Turing managed, in effect, to elbow his way onto the Bletchley Park team, although his seeming arrogance and abrasiveness alienated both the commanders there and the other experts. Particularly alienating at first was Turing's insistence that Britain had to develop its own machine to combat the German one, rather than relying just on the brain power of humans. Eventually, however, Turing won the team over to his point of view, and “Christopher,” the world's first real digital computer, was developed.

Yet despite Christopher, time passed, and the German secret still remained ultra. Turing's superiors began to run out of patience with both Turing and Christopher, but just before they pulled the plug (literally) on the computer, it finally broke the German code. It was able to break that code because Turing applied some truths that he had learned about “human codes,” personal relationships, to the project. Those human codes had long baffled him. A line repeated several times in the film echoes in his mind: “Sometimes it's the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.”

Professor Turing was taught these truths about relationships in large part by Joan Clark, the only woman expert on the team, who had to contend with the sexist attitudes of her parents, superiors and colleagues. It was to Clark that Turing was able to reveal what he thought was his own “ultra secret”--that he was gay, when being gay was still a crime in Britain.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing provides a performance that generates feelings of both inspiration and profound sadness in the audience. Keira Knightley as Joan Clark offers the mix of aspiration and feistiness that she does so well. The supporting cast of Charles Dance and Mark Strong as the commanders and Matthew Goode and Allen Leech as Turing's colleagues is exceptionally strong. Director Morten Tyldum, a Dane, and screenwriter Graham Moore give the film a structurer that reflects its “decipherment” theme very well.

The movie begins in the 1950s with a detective's investigation of a robbery at Turing's home. This investigation, intercut with the story of the Bletchley Park events, leads the detective to believe that Turing is a Soviet spy. This belief is discarded as the detective learns some of the facts about Turing's work in the war. Eventually, the detective learns that Turing is gay—and that he has committed suicide after his brilliant, beautiful mind was destroyed by the “chemical castration” to which he was subjected by the judicial system as a result of his sexual orientation. Also intercut with the developing story line are scenes of Turing's lonely childhood and his love for a classmate named Christopher. 

The Imitation Game ends with on-screen texts that point out that breaking the Enigma codes may have shortened the war by more than two years, saving over 14 million lives. The Enigma events remained a government-held secret for more than 50 years. Alan Turing was pardoned for his homosexual offense by Queen Elizabeth and honored for his achievements during the war, which included launching the computer revolution that has been reshaping the modern world. Contemplating these facts, the moviegoer may be able to grasp the profound truth of the line: “Sometimes it's the very people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.”