The Imitation Game is a tad schizophrenic. It can't seem to decide whether it wants to be a historical biopic or an issue film. While the film is ostensibly about the genius Alan Turing, the inventor of the modern-day computer, as well as his accomplishments of leading the team that broke the German ENIGMA code in World War II, it also keeps comin back to the fact that he was homosexual.it hangs like a cloud over everything and yet the movie is oddly dismissive of it throughout.
The film opens with Turing been arrested in the 1950s for indecency and he is under interrogation. During the questioning, Turing is very cagey with a lot of his answers, particularly with his personal and job history during WWII. His evasive answers pique his arresting officer's curiosity, thinking Turing may be a Communist and starts digging. This investigation sets up the story that follows. It portrays Turing as eccentric, arrogant, unempathetic, cruelly logical and ultimately unparalleled in his brilliance. He is responsible for picking the team that will assemble the machine that breaks ENIGMA, designs and builds the computer that he keeps improving until his death, and breaks every rule of convention to do it, causing in powerful allies and enemies. It also gets him noticed by the precursor of MI5, Britain's internal security service. When the machine breaks ENIGMA' it is Turing who realizes that they have to be exceedingly careful how they use the information lest they tip the Germans off that their code has been broken. He must come up with a formula that breaks down what information they will used based on cold calculations as to the strategic importance of the informationa, thus condemning thousands of people to do when they could not use the information. All of this stress had a horrible effect on him, combined with him carrying the secret that he was gay which could send him to jail if he was discovered.
So, as I said before, the movie can't decide what it wants to be. At times, it is a straight, interesting biopic and at random times becomes an issue movie like The Dallas Buyer's Club or Milk. Ever since the landmark Supreme Court cases on gay marriage, there has been a full-court press in Hollywood to socialize the cause of gay rights to a still very conservative public by shoehorning in gay characters in almost all pieces of entertainment. In the case of this movie, even though they make it clear in the beginning that Turing is gay, the transitions to his past feel abrupt and/or clumsy. It starts as an issue movie, switches to interesting historical drama, then issue again, over and over. If the filmmakers' intent was to say the fact that Turing was gay had no impact on his accomplishments, that's fine. But the big emphasis at the end was that in order to avoid jail, he was chemically castrated, and shortly thereafter committed suicide. This ending felt tacked on, out of place with the rest of the film like an afterthought. To me, it minimized the impact overall and does a disservice to both stories, making both of them fall a little flat in the end.
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