Director: Morten Tyldum.

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Mark Strong, Charles Dance, Rory Kinnear, Allen Leech.

Running Time: 114 minutes

Synopsis: The life of Alan Turing, the codebreaker who helped turn the tide of WWII yet was demonised following it, is explored in this stunning drama.

If you love Alan Turing, like I do, you will find THE IMITATION GAME a powerful, thrilling, surprisingly funny and unsurprisingly heart-breaking piece of work. If you’ve never heard of Turing, you will find THE IMITATION GAME a powerful, thrilling, surprisingly funny and unsurprisingly heart-breaking piece of work well as illuminating study on one of the greatest, and sadly unsung heroes in British history. Turing died in 1954, and the fact that it has taken this long for him to be portrayed on screen is ludicrous. What makes it all the more galling is that there was a 2001 film about the code breakers of Bletchley Park called ENIGMA, which didn’t even feature him. Writer Graham Moore, director Morten Tyldum and of course, Benedict Cumberbatch have taken on a huge responsibility; to make the first and possibly definitive film about one of the most important men who ever lived. That isn’t hyperbole, the world would be a very different place without Alan Turing, the father of computing. A much worse place.

Cumberbatch is extraordinary as the shy, occasionally abrasive genius. His mannerisms and delivery of certain lines will undoubtedly court comparisons with his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, but the two men do not share more than a superficial similarity. Whilst Sherlock swishes about, revelling in always being the smartest man in the room, Turing’s intelligence is less of a ‘performance’, it’s just how he is. Cumberbatch draws on the many facets of the character, not relying on a vague approximation of what it is to be clever nor does he present a gay martyr. His Turing is more well rounded than that, his main facet being his humanity.

As Joan Clarke, one of Turing’s colleagues and the only woman on his team, Keira Knightley is clearly comfortable in a period piece but she doesn’t rest on her laurels. She has a quiet intensity that she has honed costume dramas for many years, nobody does bubbling suppression like Keira Knightley. Joan’s struggles to earn ‘equal pay and a place at the table’ are still faced by millions of women decades later. Both she and Turing face prejudices that are still very active and Graham Moore’s fantastic script draws parallels with modern life in that regard, as life is certainly better for gays and women than it was in the early 1940s, we clearly still have a long way to go.

The supporting cast in this piece are extraordinary, with Matthew Goode, Allen Leech and Rory Kinnear worthy of high praise. Alex Lawther is a little revelation as the young Alan and Charles Dance has no problem reviving Tywin Lannister in the shape of Commander Denniston. The glare, commanding physical presence and economy of phrase he uses in admonishing the precocious Alan certainly bring to mind the exchanges with his son Tyrion in GAME OF THRONES. However, special attention must be paid to Mark Strong as Stewart Menzies, the mysterious MI6 agent whose calculated duplicity is played with a dry wit that makes him a pleasure to behold whenever he is on screen.

Director Morten Tyldum does a great job of racking up the tension (ably assisted by Alexandre Desplat’s excellent score), managing to make white men in jumpers talking about maths extremely exciting. The sequence in which Turing (spoiler alert!) cracks the code is exhilarating while the following scene, in which they realise that code breakers realise what they must now do with this information, is utterly tragic. It is here that Matthew Beard gets to his moment to shine as Peter in a beautifully played moment that is the first real explosion of emotion up until that point. The denouement includes one of the most gut wrenching exchanges you can imagine and made me quite angry, which it should. Moore’s script does not shy away from how appallingly this brilliant man was treated and we should never not be furious about it.

While Morten Tyldum rose to prominence with HEADHUNTERS, essentially a clash of alpha males, here he and Moore have delivered a love letter to the outsider. There is a sense of otherness about our heroes for, as Joan says to her friend Alan, ‘Nobody normal could have done what you did.’ This is a film for those who have been marginalised, ostracised, through no fault of their own, because they are, as Alan’s often mentioned mum refers him, an odd duck. It truly is the people we imagine nothing of, who do the things we can not imagine.

Editor: Vicky Joyce.

[usr=5] THE IMITATION GAME is playing during the London Film Festival, tickets and dates are available here. Click here to see our our coverage of the press conference.

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