The Imitation Game
(2014)
The cracking of the Enigma code has received a fair share of
cinematic attention over the past 15 years. The results, however, have been
mixed at best. First came Jon Bon Jovi starrer U-571 (okay, McConaughey was the actual lead), which gained infamy
for depicting the crucial, hitherto unknown role of the US Navy in retrieving a
German cipher machine (rather than Tommy Atkins). Then came Enigma, more specifically focussed on
the Bletchley Park code breakers, but heavily fictionalised (it was adapted
liberally from Robert Harris’ already highly fictional account). The Imitation Game arrives with the
promise of telling the real story right this time, and in so doing honouring
Alan Turing’s genius and remembering his tragic demise. Unfortunately, it fails
to hit a home run in any capacity. As an explanation of the code breaking
process, and method involved, it is perfunctory at best. As a biopic it is
crude and lacking in insight, running through the list of eccentric genius
tropes as if the makers had never seen, and been warned off by, A Beautiful Mind while manufacturing
makeshift dramatic moments in a glaring and contrived manner. The Imitation Game is a deeply average
film artificially hoisted by the (understandable) respect reserved for its
subject.
I mention A Beautiful
Mind not because The Imitation Game
ever plumbs the depths of little Ronny Howard’s Oscar winner but because both
films engage in a calculated and borderline patronising treatment of their
protagonists. They tread lightly on both the intellectual and theoretical
accomplishments of these prodigies, and so end up borderline vapid when it
comes to delivering snippets of their ideas and accomplishments. They also tip
wholesale into the de rigueur arsenal of aspergic/autistic tics and quirks demanded
of the Oscar-bait performance (there, I’ve brought up the statuette, but such
talk is the inevitable facile consequence of Cumberbatch, a fine actor, playing
a now universally acknowledged very wronged historical figure in a climate of
too-late recompense and attempts to rebalance the scales). I found A Beautiful Mind’s obtuseness actually
offensive in places, however, whereas The
Imitation Game’s problem is simply that it is not very well crafted. It’s
evident that the intentions are good, but the results are deeply pedestrian.
Another point of comparison with A Beautiful Mind (and there I will leave it) is the treatment, or
lack thereof, of its lead characters’ sexuality. Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman
brushed John Nash’s homo-(or bi-)sexuality under the carpet and had a huge hit
on their hands. Alan Turing’s historical status is intrinsically tied to the
event that befell him in the last two years of his life; his criminal
conviction for gross indecency, during a period when homosexual acts were illegal, the punishment for which was imprisonment or chemical castration. Turing opted for
the latter.
Indeed, while the royal pardon granted in the past year maybe
symbolically significant, as has been pointed out by a number of observers the
counterpoint is that all those who were similarly unjustly sentenced deserve
exactly the same, rather than singling out Turing because of a sterling
contribution to the war effort. The
Imitation Game is resolutely coy about Turing’s sexuality, only mustering
conviction in the depiction of his schoolboy crush (because it is young and
innocent rather than adult and sordid?) We don’t see him in a relationship with
a man (only the arrest and interrogation), yet an inordinate amount of time is
spent on his platonic relationship with Knightley’s Joan Clarke. It’s easy to
see where the criticisms are coming from in this regard.
That’s not the half of it, though. The manner in which we
jump from Turing’s wartime efforts to his last days/years (through the most
unwieldy and clumsy of framing devices) at least has more thematic consequence
than the way Spielberg jumped to Lincoln’s assassination for no reason other
than to provide an ending, but it does so in a manner that undermines
everything else he did after the war. As it plays, you’d be forgiven for
thinking Turing pitched straight into a steep post-war decline, isolated in his
home building a mad machine, relieved only by bouts of cottaging. The scene in
which Joan visits Alan, who is suffering the effects of the hormonal treatment,
is affecting and disturbing, as it should be, but it smacks of cutting to the
chase. And, while it may have been commendably restrained not to depict the (generally assumed, and the coroner’s verdict)
suicide via cyanide-laced apple out of respect for alternate view (held by his
mother and family, that it was an accidental overdose resulting from his
electroplating process), this is not the sort of diligence that has been
depicted elsewhere.
Graham Moore’s slipshod screenplay, based on Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew
Hodges, might suggest an air of rigour and complexity through a structure that
finds the 1952 Turing interrogated, with the main thrust concerning his wartime
efforts at Bletchley Park (which resulted in Churchill, among others,
suggesting Turing was responsible for single biggest contribution to the Allied
victory over Germany, one that shortened the war by an estimated two years) while
further flashbacks depict his awakening feelings for (and loss of) fellow pupil
Christopher. Sadly there is little that is rigorous or perceptive about the
construction. Instead, one is compelled to cry fake in scene after scene
irrespective of specific points of authenticity. Crucial moments are artlessly
devised to depict conflict or emphasise high sprung genius, while the dialogue
is at best on-the-nose (characters frequently speak in knowing sound bites)and at worst hopelessly rudimentary .
Cumberbatch’s Alan is abrupt/rude/ funny (although he
doesn’t get a joke, except maybe about sandwiches) has Keira Knightley as a
best friend/fiancé, clashes with his superiors and colleagues (most of whom
invariably come to respect him) and generally runs the gamut of worn-out
eccentric clichés. Turing’s absolutely not
like Sherlock, because Cumberbatch makes him a touch more introverted and gives
him trouble getting his words out. He’s
still rude to people, though, so he’s enough
like Sherlock that there are some crowd-pleasing moments involved. Cumberbatch performs with all the unbridled pleasure
of a glutton tucking into a big juicy steak; Turing is a succession of ticks
and vocal impediments; elongated “L”s, a subdued stammer and calculated
cadences. The role is an thespian’s delight, but it’s so studied – and familiar form the sort of thing we’ve seen him do
before – that Turing only rarely passes through the surface tapestry and
becomes a fully formed character.
Moore definitely doesn’t support Cumberbatch, however. The
actors are generally pretty good, certainly much better than the script
deserves, but are stuck sparring with the lead through a succession of scenes
where Turing’s wilful brilliance wins out; mostly he’s the tortured genius
proven right in the end. Occasionally, to suggest he’s three-dimensional and
not all greatness, he behaves insufferably. An additional problem is, while
Turing is a passable caricature, those he interacts with barely even get to
play cyphers (rather than cipher machines).
As soon as Turing arrives at Bletchley Park there is a
sinking feeling, as he is subsumed by well-trodden ground. He’s eccentrically
disposed, indifferent to the views of Charles Dance’s Commander Denniston and
unabashed at announcing he is unmotivated by the war effort and that politics
isn’t really his thing. The ghost of Sherlock seeps into the scene. And
Denniston (Dance is solid, but he always is) is instantly cast as the malignant
foe, because Turing in the film needs one; he suspects him of being a spy,
threatens to turn off his machine and enacts various other unlikely and blunt
inventions to create a tangible struggle. It isn’t that such devices shouldn’t
be added in a dramatisation, simply that they require significantly more effort
and care if they are going to pass without comment.
But this is the kind of biopic that commits such cardinal
errors as having other characters announce to Turing what a legacy he will
have. It makes dramatic sense to have Turing, who sees the world with a keener
mind, voice the realisation that the knowledge of the broken code cannot get
out (and thus alert the Germans). But then Moore has to overcook his turkey by
having one of the fellow code breakers reveal his brother is in the convoy about
to be bombed. Such sense of artifice is never far from any given scene.
Later, Turing’s fellows, whom he has treated so
dismissively, get behind him one and all as Denniston announces he is fired (“I
quit!” they proclaim in succession; while it’s self-evident by now that a high
ranking on The Black List is no indication of quality, how anyone gave such
toe-curling cheese a free pass is baffling). Sometimes this feels not so much
like a major motion picture as a school play where the teenage author has called
in favours to some well-known treaders of the boards in the extended family.
The spy fare too isn’t up to much either, a poor man-beggar
man-thief’s version of Tinker Tailor
trappings. Director Morton Tyldum scores by having Mark Strong as Major General
Stewart Menzies, the face of MI6, but that’s about as far as it goes in
favours. The framing device of the police investigation (with Rory Kinnear
unable to save a thanklessly mechanical part) is a generally poor attempt to
provide context to the conviction, the mood of the period and Turing’s own
theories. Particularly awkward s is depositing the computer scientist’s
explanation of the Turing Test amid the policy interrogation.
There are nice
touches along the way. The moment of realisation of how to crack the code works
well enough (although, one suspects it could have been handled even
better). Then there’s Turing’s letter to
Churchill, a witty punchline to the previous scene in which Denniston mockingly
instructs him that the Prime Minister is the only figure who holds seniority
over the Bletchley Commander. Then
there’s Turing, now installed as head of team, immediately giving two of his
colleagues their marching orders. The dealings with Soviet spy John Cairncross,
here a fellow member of Turing’s group, creates an effective parallel with
Turing; one keeps secrets professionally, the other personally (Moore extends this
theme to the initial suspicions of the police investigation into Turing, while Cairncross’
non-judgemental stance also serves to pre-empt the political allegiances of Guy
Burgess). There may be little finesse to any of these areas, but they work in
and of themselves.
Most effective is Turing’s early
life, with Alex Lawther providing a far more persuasive and affecting performance
as young Turing than Cumberbatch’s mannered rendition. Jack Bannon is also very
good as Christopher Morcom. Knowing that it was Morcom’s loss that instilled in
Turing an ardent atheism (albeit with a belief in the endurance of the spirit)
seems like too strong a piece of character information to pass up, yet it
doesn’t get a mention. Moore’s screenplay is flavorlessly functional, and it’s
left to the actors to fill in the gaps.
None of them are bad, but most
can’t quite manage the task; Matthew Goode is merely okay as the suave ladies’
man who develops a grudging respect for his superior. Knightley is actually very good, a model of
restraint opposite Cumberbatch’s whoops and hollers. This is the kind of part,
playing to her natural poshness and
chumminess that allows one to forget those unfortunate occasions when she looks
as if she’s trying out for a Ronseal advert. It’s evident that the focus on
Joan is as much evidence of faltering confidence in the tale of a gay
mathematician who fell prey to the cruelty of the establishment as the heavy-handed
injections of “excitement” into the plot, but that shouldn’t detract from the
decent work she does.
This is Morten Tyldum’s English language debut, having
turned heads with the effectively nasty (and funny) Jo Nesbo’s Headhunters. But there is little of
that flair and energy here. Rather, he seems content to indulge every tin-eared
cliché that Moore offers. Good God! Here’s a montage of Turing beavering away on
the science intercut with him out running; that Turing tried out for the
Olympic team does nothing to diminish the lack of imagination. Tyldum probably
saw the kudos Tomas Alfredson received after seguing from Let the Right One In to his very good spy adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. If so, he has
been hoisted by his own petard, showing himself an inferior filmmaker in every
respect.
The Imitation Game
will very likely be showered with Oscar nominations, and Cumberbatch may very
well walk away with a gong (he’s riding the quest of just such a wave). After
all, Harvey Weinstein bought the picture for $7m in February, and he knows how
to campaign the shit out of otherwise unlikely contenders. And then bring
winners to the podium. But the truth is, the film just isn’t very good. It’s
resolutely average. And biopics have a tendency to be very average. Turing’s
tale is all the more so because the story has such potential, which is wasted.
Instead we get another cartoon eccentric genius, complete with a dash of
tragedy to provoke discussion about how important the film is. The Imitation Game is unworthy of the
worthiness the subject matter bestows.
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