This Turing Feels More Machine Than Human

WordMaster

While watching The Imitation Game, the new historical drama revolving around celebrated mathematician and computer science pioneer Alan Turing and the British intelligence effort to crack the German Enigma code during World War II, I could not stop imagining it as a TV show. It attempts to pack about four different stories into less than two hours of screen time and, as a result, fails to do justice to any of them. There’s the traditional biopic, which follows Turing from his teenage years in boarding school to his conviction for “gross indecency” not long before his mysterious death (the film presents it as an unambiguous suicide, though some dispute this); the quasi-romantic relationship between Turing and Joan Clark, who bond over their mutual status as outsiders; the workplace drama showing Turing’s sometimes prickly interactions with his fellow codebreakers; and the old-fashioned, John Le Carré-style spy thriller involving the hunt for a Soviet double-agent led by Stewart Menzies, the head of MI6 played here by formidable character actor Mark Strong. A full show or mini-series might have been able to flesh out the supporting players and thoroughly explore the inner workings of the Bletchley Park operation, but in a feature-length movie, these potentially fascinating elements are sidelined in favor of something cursory and generic.

             To be fair, The Imitation Game is slightly more enjoyable than your average biopic, not least because its subject is so complex and remarkable that it would be near-impossible to make a story about him boring (with Hollywood, though, you’d be surprised). Graham Moore’s script suffers from trite sentimentality toward the end, particularly with a certain recurring line that seems to exist for no reason other than to be inserted in trailers, but early on, the dialogue whisks by with a dry wit, and you almost wish scenes would last longer than they do just because it’s so fun watching these actors swap banter. The cast is the highlight of the movie, hardly a surprise given that it consists of respected thespians like Strong and Charles Dance and talents in their primes like Benedict Cumberbatch, Kiera Knightley and Matthew Goode. They’re so captivating, in fact, that you can almost forget that, with one obvious exception, none of them gets a whole lot to do; Strong and Dance exude gravitas, Knightley perky geniality and Goode dapper charisma, but they could probably do these roles in their sleep. Even Cumberbatch, in what’s clearly meant as a star vehicle, treads familiar ground, having spent much of his career so far portraying aloof geniuses. He’s good, but at this point, what else do you expect?

             On the whole, it has the same deficiencies that plague most biopics. Although Moore employs a framing device and multiple timelines as a way of easing viewers into the period setting and avoiding the monotonous “and then this happened” structure that often encumbers the genre, in practice, these strategies have the opposite effect: rather than facilitating the transition into the past, they make it more jarring, further distancing the audience from the central narrative and disrupting the pacing in key moments. The whole thing feels hopelessly artificial, like listening to someone tell a story instead of experiencing the story yourself. As compelling as the acting is and as elegantly realized as the costumes and sets look, Norwegian director Morton Tyldum never permits the audience to become truly immersed in his world or connect to the characters beyond the most superficial level. For a movie about war, deception and thwarted desire, it’s oddly passionless, seemingly more interested in Turing as a puzzle to be solved – an enigma, if you will – than as a human being.

             Debates over historical accuracy and artistic license have plagued this Oscar season even more than usual, whether it’s critics lamenting the unexpected downfall of Selma or pundits arguing about the political leanings and questionable morality of American Sniper. Personally, I think filmmakers should be able to do whatever they want (the disclaimer reads “based on a true story,” not “a true story,” after all) and it’s the audience’s responsibility to do research as needed. In some cases, though, sticking closer to the truth not only makes for a more honest story but also a better one. For instance, The Imitation Game strongly implies that Turing displayed symptoms of Asperger’s or autism, including social awkwardness and a penchant for separating his food by color, but in reality, he was never diagnosed as existing on the autism spectrum and has even been described as having a sharp sense of humor and several close friends. By reducing Turing to a somewhat conventional “brilliant misanthrope” character, the movie not only falls perilously close to the Rainman trope (autism gives you special powers!) but also does a disservice to the real-life man. Ultimately, the reason biopics so often fail is that they try to package real people, with their convoluted histories, myriad experiences and thorny nuances, into neat, easily digestible narratives and in the process erase whatever made these individuals so interesting and unique in the first place. Thus, in attempting to make Turing extraordinary, The Imitation Game only succeeds in making him as ordinary as ever.

Links:

http://blackbearpictures.com/films-in-theaters/the-imitation-game/