On The Imitation Game

Alan Turing was a fascinating man. Not only was his work a huge part in the breaking of the enigma code, but the omniscient decisions that it led to were strenuous and damaging to the man. His arrest and chemical castration for homosexuality led to suicide and in the years before his death he often reported being followed, suggesting that the secrets he had mean suicide may have been nothing more than a convenient way to die. Dark forces were at play throughout much of Turing’s life and his posthumous recognition (Queen’s pardon, cinema and a road near Stockport Grammar school) are small acknowledgements for his sacrifices.

The Imitation Game, like his after death recognitions, does not do the man justice. This is a ‘please the Americans’ film dealing in hackneyed English accents, pretty rainy streets and quaint upper lip Englishness. Starting out as a thriller, but as it tries to avoid repeating the thrills of Enigma (2001) forgetting to be thrilling and moving into a strange, uncertain biography, The Imitation Game misfires on many fronts. The story here is the man, with the breaking of the Enigma code secondary, yet the film puts this these other way round and the man becomes a thinly drawn figure, filled out by on screen text at the end, telling us what the film really should have dealt with. The disappointment is that there was great potential here, but the positives are that there is still room to tell Turing’s story.