Review + Response: The Imitation Game

Okay, okay... I know that this film has been out for weeks so it's a little late for a review but I'd not written one for a while and I had some thoughts on the film that I wanted to share.

The Imitation Game had been recommended to me so many times in the past few weeks so I had to carve out time to see it. As a member of the LGBTQ community I had to see it. I loved how naturally they depicted Turing's sexuality without making it a huge plot point, it was definitely treated as a respectful sub plot. I felt things were a little rushed and I would have really liked them to tastefully depict Turing's suicide as it remains one of the most beautiful and poetic suicides I've ever heard of.

This was a real character piece and Cumberbatch most definitely stole the spotlight. His portrayal of Alan Turing was strong, possibly his strongest yet. The rest of the film, however, fell a bit flat. We went through this whole journey of Turing joining the team and building a machine and yes, suddenly it works. We see it working and then are thrown a brief bit of information about how they used the information before Turing, in a most blasé fashion, tells us how the war dragged on for two years and was over. This was incredibly anti-climactic. Were it not for the strength of Benedict Cumberbatch and his portrayal of Alan Turing, this film would have fallen flat because the plot moves so hurriedly and without care for dramatic tension. Things are not adequately brought to a dramatic ground. Cumberbatch brings the laughs and the tears and really makes you feel. The rest of the cast give a decent enough performance (with Keira Knightley playing Keira Knightley as per usual) but this feels like a good enough film that certainly entertained. I feel that this could call for an Oscar nomination for Cumberbatch, that's for sure...