They do a thing where the computer, which is of course 100 percent Turing’s project, is named after his first love, Christopher. In reality, it was called Bombe. Photos courtesy The Weinstein Company.
The Imitation Game is disheartening. It is a movie to be angry about and disappointed in, but also one which should never have been expected to be any better.
The movie is a biography of the sexy, new interpretation of Sherlock Holmes Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), hailed as the father of computer science. Turing, with the assistance and backing of the British military and mathematician Gordon Welchman with no help or encouragement, develops the world’s first computer to break Germany’s communication cipher at the height of World War II. Afterward, much higher levels of government Turing all on his own decides how many pieces of information to act on — the Coventry conundrum Turing Sherlock talked about in that one episode — because Turing is smart and special and talented and everyone else is just dumb. Later, Turing is persecuted for being gay, because you win Oscars for playing Gay People that Die.
This movie is an insult. Not just to Turing, not just to the British military, but to everyone who sees it. Every aspect of the story is dramatized into terms beyond black and white, beyond any need or even opportunity for the audience to participate in the film.
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