Nick Burnham

I mostly enjoyed The Imitation Game, though if they had found an actual gay, autistic actor to play Turing, I think that would have felt a lot more real than Benedict Cumberbatch quietly sobbing to himself over being put on hormone therapy. Even Alex Lawther, the kid who plays Turing as a child in the film, feels more honest. And Keira Knightley doesn't exactly strike me as the plain Jane, mathematical genius type either in her role as Joan Clarke. Noticeably, none of the characters explain anything about the puzzles or codes they're trying to solve or the machine they're building in any great detail, resorting instead to repeating "you'd never understand" when asked about them, probably because if they did explain anything it would feel very forced coming from these actors. But I did like how the film portrays the UK during the war and the choices MI6 had to make about who to tell which secrets and how to "leak" false information to the Soviets, the Nazis, and even their own military in order to keep Alan Turing's code-cracking machine a secret. And if you like crossword puzzles as much as I do now, crosswords get a whole lot of screen time in this movie. I just wish the film didn't seem so indecisive about being a war thriller or a gay rights biopic, because it's trying to be both but doesn't fully accomplish either in the end.