The Imitation Game is based on the true story of Alan Turing, an unsung hero of World War II. Benedict Cumberbatch does a star turn as the British code-breaker. Matthew Goode, Allen Leach and Matthew Beard are fellow code breakers. Keira Knightly plays the only woman on the top secret team. Rory Kinnear plays the 1950s detective who discovers Turing’s clandestine history. Both Cumberbatch and Knightly have received many award nominations for their roles as has the film and its director Morten Tyldum. The film score, composed by Alexandre Desplat, is currently available on iTunes.
Issued in wide release on December 25, 2014, the Imitation Game is considered a nail-biting thriller. The Nazis have a machine, called Enigma, which allows them to change their codes every day. In 1939, Turing and other code breakers are sworn to silence and put to work at Bletchley Park, the British Code and Cypher School. Turing, who is cold and aloof, is clearly the better code-breaker, but his attitude puts everyone off. When his homosexuality is suspected, he is in danger of being removed from the team. A traitor threatens British security and Turing’s only real friend. Despite personal demons and worksite dramas, Turing creates a super machine, one of the earliest computers, and eventually the team breaks the code. The drama then centers around preventing the Germans from realizing that the British can decipher the Enigma codes.
In telling Turing’s story, the movie flashes back to his unhappy childhood and flashes forward to his unhappy life in the early 1950s. After he comes under scrutiny due to a burglary at his apartment, Turing is convicted of indecency, the judicial term for homosexuality. Rather than stay in prison, he agrees to take a controversial therapy.
