Director(s): Morten Tyldum (Headhunters, Passengers).
Writer(s): Graham Moore (Screenplay). Based on - 'Alan Turing: The Enigma' by Andrew Hodges.
Cerficicate: 12A.
Genre: Biopic / Historical Drama / WWII Thriller.
Main Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch (Star Trek Into Darkness, Doctor Strange) as Alan Turing, Keira Knightley (Never Let Me Go, A Dangerous Method) as Joan Clarke, Matthew Goode (Watchmen, Burning Man) as Hugh Alexander and Rory Kinnear (Skyfall, Broken) as Dci. Robert Nock.
Distributor: The Weinstein Company (Since 2018 - Lantern Capital).
Budget/Box Office: $14 million / $233 million.
MajorAward(s): Nominated for 8 Academy Awards. Won 1 - Best Adapted Screenplay. Nominated for 5 Golden Globes - Won 0. Nominated for 9 BAFTA's. Won 0.
Morton Tyldum’s historical drama The Imitation Game (2014) sees one of Benedict Cumberbatch’s most touching performances as influential cryptanalyst Alan Turing.
The real-life drama recounts Turing’s attempt to break the German enigma code for the British government during the Second World War, alongside a focus on his personal life as a gay man in 1940s Britain.
Joining a cryptography team, the socially awkward Turing is difficult to work with, considering his co-workers inferior to his intelligence as he develops a machine to break the German Enigma messages. Advertising a difficult mathematics problem in a newspaper, Turing comes across Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), the only female able to pass Turing’s test alongside the male cryptographers.
The film recounts the challenges which came with breaking the code alongside flashbacks from Turing’s troubled youth. Despite receiving eight Academy Award nominations, The Imitation Game failed to win in any category, proving the Oscars are no indicator of a film’s value.
