Watched: The Imitation Game (2014).
I was curious as to how this would end, given the tragic trajectory of Alan Turing’s life (he was sentenced for homosexual indecency and chemically castrated, leading to his suicide two years later); ultimately, it’s the ending that’s weakest, flashing back to the final moments between the team that cracked the Enigma code before they went their separate ways, as a series of biographical notes appear along the bottom of the screen. It’s sweet, but it’s also kind of rote.
A good thing, then, that the rest of the film is so well-crafted. A fair number of critics lumped Benedict Cumberbatch’s interpretation of Alan Turing in with his Sherlock Holmes, and I don’t think that’s fair - the man in this film is much better-defined, brilliantly intelligent but inarticulate rather than cold when it comes to his own emotions.
Much of the discussion at the time seemed to revolve around the fact that this film contributed to LGBT erasure by portraying his relationship with Joan Clarke so strongly; with respect, I don’t think that critique holds up to much scrutiny. Ultimately, the strongest emotional thread that I got was of Turing’s attempt to create a lasting legacy of his late first love, Christopher Morcom, and the flashbacks to his childhood stand out to me as the emotional touchstones of the film. The portrayed relationship with Joan never struck me as anything more than a platonic meeting of minds, and I can’t help but feel like critics arguing against its inclusion would rather the filmmakers invented a male character with whom Turing could have a perfectly happy, proud, utterly implausible love affair instead.
It’s a film not without its flaws - even ignoring the ending, sometimes the emotional beats are more mawkish than sentimental, and Charles Dance’s military commander is a bit one-note - but it’s a worthwhile portrayal of an incredible man, and maybe that’s enough.