Bit late to this but finally saw The Imitation Game this weekend. Really rather disappointed – I think Enigma (also about breaking the same cipher in Bletchley Park in WW2) is the better film. I just wasn’t convinced by the awkward friendship between Turing and Keira Knightly’s character. The scene on the lawn where she says something like “I think you’ll find if you move those equations over here…” was worthy of Acorn Antiques at its cringiest. Although based on a work of fiction, rather than fact, Enigma‘s central relationship, also awkward, is more believable and just rings true.
Charles Dance’s cartoon commander could have marched up to Turing’s machine and said “I want that machine orf, and I want it orf now” in an homage to The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I can imagine one of Turing’s colleagues tearing off a strip of paper tape, turning to the camera and declaring “FORTY-TWO? We are going to get lynched…”
The real star of The Imitation Game is Alex Lawther. His portrayal of the schoolboy Turing was stunning. A great future surely lies ahead for this amazing young actor.
I understand why they skipped over the real electronic computer Colossus, built at Bletchley Park to break tougher German codes, but there’s a cracking story to be told about the unassuming Post Office Engineer Tommy Flowers who built it. He too can claim to be the father of the digital computer.
And finally, the last word on Charles Dance:
I may have peaked. pic.twitter.com/WUTRPfl0Dk
— Daniel Dalton (@wordsbydan) November 28, 2014
Nothing to disagree with except to say I saw Enigma recently on TV (I must have read the book at some time too) and found the lead character the dreariest ever. Fortunately he was redeemed by Jeremy Northam, deliciously elegant and patrician, plus the chubby bespectacled Kate Winslet. A much better told story with a solid conclusion too, unlike the messy dribble out end of Imitation Game. Boo!