Breaking the Code

review Tammy Nguyen

03/14/17

The Imitation Game

Bad things almost always happen to good people. In The Imitation Game, a movie about Alan Turing’s process of breaking Enigma, a machine that the German used to protect military communication, there are two simultaneous struggles: one is breaking the code and the other is Turing’s sexuality. The movie was made in 2014, based on the real story of the English cryptanalyst.

Playing the main character is Benedict Cumberbatch, an English actor who rose to fame through the TV series Sherlock. His acting perfectly portrays the incredibly smart, but also vulnerable and frightened Alan Turing. His manner of speaking: proper but fast, almost always nervous, conveys an unsettling mind. He is also rigid in his facial expressions, and he lets the lines that he says contrast his face. Benedict makes Alan Turing more real for the audience, and he makes the audience root for Turing throughout the entire movie.

The movie was mostly filmed in England, and it even went as far as filming at Turing’s former school, Sherborne. Other filming locations include old houses and parks, and the set was very carefully picked; there was nothing that looked too modern in any scene.