As soon as I heard about this upcoming movie, I was crazy excited for it. A biopic about Alan Turing, genius code-breaker who helped dramatically shorten World War II with his technical and mathematical knowhow, British hero who was treated appallingly by his country due to his sexuality? A fascinating lead character for Benedict Cumberbatch and a host of other fine British actors? Period costumes, awesome 1940s proto-computers, and ciphers as far as the eye could see? I was all over that.
So, I was disappointed that it wasn’t everything I wanted it to be. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a good movie, and I really liked watching it. However, it’s not without its cinematic issues and, while it’s enjoyable as a movie, it’s problematic as a biopic. The latter issue is wider in scope and more spoilery than I want to get into for an overall review, so I’ll save the dramatic license for another post.
Film-wise, I only have one major complaint – the movie doesn’t seem to know quite what it wants to be about. The brunt of the story follows Turing’s work at Bletchley Park during the war, augmented by childhood flashbacks of his earliest love of puzzles/ciphers (as well as boys,) and a police interview during his later legal troubles serves as a framing device for the whole movie. While the individual scenes flow into one another pretty well and don’t feel disjointed, the film feels a bit at a thematic loss. It’s not a comprehensive bio, but it’s not an in-depth snapshot either. The split focus on three different periods of his life don’t quite come together, and in the final scene, it’s clear the movie’s not sure how to reconcile them.
As I said, though, the assorted pieces of the film come off well. The dialogue is sharp and entertaining, filling us luddites in on the pertinent math without condescending. I like seeing a war story that’s so far from the front lines, where the battles are waged over radio signals and the heroes’ strongest weapons are their intellects. I’d heard pre-release rumblings that the film played up Turing’s relationship with colleague Joan Clarke too romantically, but I think they have a good, platonic connection based on their work and mutual fascination with puzzles.
Cumberbatch gives a predictably fantastic performance. His Turing is piercingly intelligent, and he puts many off with his laser focus and casual arrogance, but Cumberbatch never lets him feel cold. When Turing fails to connect with others, it’s because they’re a puzzle he doesn’t know how to solve. Keira Knightley’s Joan is brilliant, gutsy, and perceptive. Many of the other characters don’t get much focus or nuance, but the rest of the cast provides fine support. I always like Matthew Goode (though A Single Man is still the first film that comes to mind when I see him,) Mark Strong (admittedly, not my favorite Mr. Knightley, but that’s just because there have been so many great ones) is reliably good, and it’s fun to see Allen Leech outside of Downton Abbey (although hearing him with a Scottish accent rather than Irish was reallyodd to hear!) Still, with this film, it’s clearly Cumberbatch’s world, and everyone else just lives in it.
Warnings
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