A belated review of The Imitation Game

I was genuinely looking forward to this film. As a fan of Sherlock, I like Benedict Cumberbatch. The story of Bletchley codebreaking is fascinating, as is the pioneering work on early computers. Alan Turing himself actually merits being described as a genius, and the issues around his homosexuality and the very different circumstances of the 1940s and 50s is well worth exploring dramatically. Having seen Derek Jacobi play the role of Turing on stage in the early 1990s, I was intrigued to see how this portrayal would come across.

There was lots to commend the film. The template is good - clever but plucky misfit overcomes scepticism further up the chain of command to develop something significant for the war effort - think Barnes Wallis and the bouncing bomb or Watson-Watt with radar. Add the fact that Turing set out all the basics for modern computing plus the complexities of his personal life, and it should have been riveting.

And yet it didn't quite work for me. Other reviews have pointed out the factual problems with the film Contemporary accounts record Turing as more of a team player and more sociable than the film suggests. There was more fruitful code breaking going on than the film suggests, and the cracking of Enigma was done in stages - first the simpler one, and then the more complex naval version. It's unlikely Turing ever knew the Soviet spy in Bletchley. Also, Turing was off his chemical treatment for the final year of his life, and not to the bitter end. There is, apparently, some evidence to suggest he was in quite good spirits in that final year, and some have even suggested his death was accidental (and, of course, the conspiracy theorists remain convinced that it was murder).

Whilst those are valid criticisms, I accept that drama sometimes needs to compress and exaggerate events in order to make a coherent couple of hours in a cinema. However, the Imitation Game felt more like a drama-documentary in terms of its script. There had to be some technical content, including a good moment when Turing utters the words "digital computer" (one of the very few people in the 1940s who would have had any idea what that might mean.) But it felt a bit clunky at times.

However, it was the portrayal of Turing himself that troubled me most - not Cumberbatch's acting, but the material he was given and the way his character was framed. The film handles the whole question of his sexuality very oddly to me. In flashbacks we see his close friendship at school, which indicates the way things are going. Those scenes in the school were some of the most moving moments for me. Then we see little more until his spy colleague names his sexuality out of the blue and tries to use that to manipulate him. But underneath, there is a sense that Turing is a kind of tragic hero, doing great things for his country, but doomed to a sad and despairing end. His engagement is obviously ill-fated from the start, despite the apparent willingness of his fiancee to go ahead in full knowledge of his sexuality. Finally he is found out, and we see a relatively tame depiction of how gay men were apprehended for indecency under the laws that then applied to homosexual relationships. I suspect they were often treated with greater brutality and disgust, according to the attitudes of the era.

The theme (stated explicitly) of the whole movie is that a) Turing is weird and b) weird people sometimes do extraordinary things. At one level that summary has a good degree of validity. However, the drive of the narrative leaves the viewer with the sense that his sexuality is central to any weirdness he may have shown, and that gay people are destined to a tragic, albeit sometimes heroic, end. I felt the film was telling me that his sexuality was a rather inconvenient problem, but we can overlook that as he was jolly clever in the war. That may well have been what the security forces thought at the time, but a modern film ought to be able to critique that without inserting lots of clunky and anachronistic lines and phrases.

It was an interesting evening out, but I don't think the film is a classic.

A Blogger catch-up

Taking a week's holiday seems to have taken me out of the pattern of blogging at all. As I'm taking a few minutes out, it seemed a good moment to catch up a bit.

Not wanting to bore you with too much holiday stuff, but we spent a week in the middle of Lincolnshire doing very little except being looked after at our favourite guest house. One brilliant experience was watching the (surprisingly good) Toy Story 3 at the Kinema in the Woods at Woodhall Spa. In the middle of the picture, there was an intermission, and out of the floor came the Compton Organ. Not an original fitting, apparently, but enhance the sense of being in an historic building (it's been a cinema since 1922). However, we had to miss Woodhall's worm-charming festival, which was probably just as well.

I have also missed out on blogging about Rev when it was still current. It was, at last, a series which took comedy about clergy and the church into new and edgy territory. Dibley and Derek Nimmo were never like this as Rev captured something much more authentic. They got so much right - the vicarage itself, complete with 1980s kitchen cupboards and left-over washing-up, the topical issues, the ecclesiastical terminology, and even the 'types' in congregation bore a striking resemblance to some people I have known.

It also managed to capture experiences using situations that would never quite happen, but which carried the same feelings. The Archdeacon with his black cab was a brilliant way of picturing of what has been a very real experience for some people I have known. What was remarkable was how respectful it was of Adam's prayers and how painfully it depicted his breakdown. And most churches have a Colin. Good reviews on Bishop Alan's blog and also Steve Tilley's.

Meanwhile now I'm back this month seems busier than almost any other - weddings, baptisms and holiday club are filling up the space pretty thoroughly, along with not a few other concerns. And in the midst of all this, tragedies of landslides and flooding remind us of the consequences of climate change, and the urgency to address it. Why not visit the Disasters Emergency Committee website if you haven't already donated.

OK, that's everything bubbling at the top of my brain at the moment. Hopefully I'll be a slightly more regular visitor to my own blog in the coming days!

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Local Accent

Cover via Amazon

I find regional accents fascinating. At a funeral the other day, the undertaker checked that I had been saying 'Joan', as he thought I might have said 'Jane'. He confessed his hearing wasn't what it was, but I worked out the problem. I say Joan, to rhyme with 'cone', whereas in Lancashire a lot of people say Joan to rhyme with 'corn'.

My native Nottingham accent is a tricky one for people outside the region to get right. I noticed that it was announced today that Alan Sillitoe had died. Famous for his gritty realist 'kitchen sink' dramas, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning was probably his most famous, along with The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. Set in Nottingham, depicting events in the life of a worker at the Raleigh bike factory, Nottingham people could spot when the accents drifted a little from Nottingham to Yorkshire. Depictions of D.H. Lawrence books suffer the same problem.

Anyway, I just thought I'd tell you what was goin' off, before I head off down the twitchell to go to church. Wouldn't want you gettin' mardy about it.

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Reel Issues

Enjoyed tonight's discussion at our Reel Issues session. This was an evening using

Image via Wikipedia

clips from a movie to prompt conversation about social, ethical or other questions. This week used Pleasantville - a movie from 1998, which followed two 1990s kids who get transported back into the world of a 1958 sitcom, where everything is safe, predictable and ...pleasant. We touched on racism, gender roles, maturity, creativity, empowering people and more. Not what you might expect from a movie that, on the face of it, seems based on quite a silly premise.

Next week's film (Thursday) is more obviously challenging: Hotel Rwanda, which follows the true story of a hotel manager who saved many lives by sheltering them in his hotel during the genocide. Daunting material, but an excellent film to engage with

15

Yes, the Rev Peatman and I have been married now for fifteen years (hard to believe we're that old, I know). So to mark this we went to the wonderful Zeffirelli's cinema and restaurant in Ambleside. One of the great perks of living in Lancaster is that you can have an evening out in the Lake District!

The restaurant serves wonderful vegetarian Italian food, and has a great atmosphere and look. The website can give you menu, wine list, photos, etc. They have a £15-95 deal for two courses and a movie ticket with a reserved seat in the cinema. The cinemas are relatively small and cosy, very comfortable and with an excellent quality of sound and picture (which I only realised was digital when I walked close to the screen to leave at the end. No pixels at normal range). If you're in the Lakes, it's well worth an evening out.

The film? Miss Potter. Well what else do you go and see out of the current releases whilst in Ambleside? It's not a hugely demanding film, but it's beautifully shot, nicely performed and Renée Zellweger has a remarkably good English accent for a Texan. I also thought it was good that it's a PG (not quite sure why it isn't U) so that kids who like the books could go and see, although it's obviously not a aimed at children.

Da Vinci

Can't comment yet. I am one of the few people on earth who hasn't yet read or seen it. Enjoyed Boris Johnson's blog on it, though.

Good quotes around, though. Apparently one is "Quick. We need a library". My good friend Martyn Percy is also quoted by Sir Ian, which is a pretty good story to pull out of the bag at a dinner party. Nice one, Martyn.

Also started using MSN recently. Surprisingly addictive. May have to give it up for Lent...

Movie magic

Apparently the old "Harry Potter encourages interest in the occult" stuff is surfacing again in the wake of the new HP4 movie. It's funny how people confuse the use of a genre (magical world) with moral endorsement. I wonder if those people have the same worries about magic in Narnia (or indeed in Lord of the Rings) where the good guys have quite a lot of magical power.

Another point my wife made was that in HP, magic wasn't a moral choice - you either are or aren't magical. The moral issue is then how you use the power you have - just like it is in the real muggle world we live in.