In the film The Imitation Game, Benedict Cumberbatch plays the idiosyncratic mathematician Alan Turing, who was instrumental in cracking Germany's Enigma codes during World War II. A role he plays with verve in a tribute to the war hero.
Relatively few people will know the British mathematician Alan Turing. Still, he was the first to figure out how a computer could work and invented a test for artificial intelligence. In addition, he made perhaps the greatest individual contribution to the defeat of the Nazis during the Second World War.
By cracking the Enigma code, the allied forces were able to intercept and read secret messages from the Germans. The war took a different turn and, according to some experts, was shortened by up to two years because the plans of the Nazis were known.
Yet the man responsible, young Turing, was not honored for his actions after the war. In fact, he was arrested for his homosexuality and had to choose:prison or chemical castration. High time for reparation in a major Hollywood production about the maligned war hero.
The trailer of 'The Imitation Game'.
Unusual Turing
What stands out in the film is the great acting. Main character Benedict Cumberbatch certainly excels and puts down a peculiar and stubborn Turing, who does not exactly excel at communicating with colleagues. The character borders on the autistic, something that the filmmakers have exaggerated.
The script of the film is also well put together. Different periods (his childhood, the war years and the period afterwards) are intertwined but nevertheless form a whole. And although 'The Imitation Game' mainly focuses on the work of Turing and his colleagues, the threat of war is constantly palpable. It is anything but a film about a lonely mathematician who builds a machine in a back room.
The science
Then there's the question of whether science is coming into the picture. Turing has done so much for the young field of computer science that it is almost impossible to cover all its merits in one coherent story. That doesn't happen either.
It is his work as a codebreaker that takes the lead. And the way the English frolicked with the Germans' initially unbreakable codes in their headquarters at Blechtley Park.
Eventually there was success with the Bombe machine, which in the film is named Christopher after Turing's childhood sweetheart. It was able to test a large number of different encryptions from Enigma and find the right settings for deciphering the message.
The filmmakers paid close attention, because the machine seems expressive. And even the cogs turn exactly as they did in real life. What they completely overlook is that the machine was not (only) built by Turing itself, but by a team of people.
Not all tricks of the code cracker trade are covered in 'The Imitation Game'. For example, Enigma's biggest weakness was that a letter could never be encrypted as itself. The Allies took advantage of this. Also missing is the way in which standard sentences of the Germans formed clues.
Furthermore, the Turing machine devised by Turing in 1936 and the Turing test are footnotes in the film. Still, it's actually nice that they're featured at all. It is bearable that the viewer does not fully understand what Turing has meant for computer science. Treating this matter much more extensively would probably have made the film unnecessarily complicated.
Hollywood versus reality
It does feel a bit odd that key characters Turing worked with aren't in the film at all. For example Gordon Welchman with whom Turing developed the machine together. Or that there suddenly appears to be a spy in Turing's team. While in reality that was not the case.
His relationship with Joan Clarke may have been somewhat romanticized again (although they were briefly engaged). But if you keep in mind that reality has been violated a bit, then this 'artistic freedom' doesn't really bother this film, which should above all be seen as a successful tribute to Turing.