Benedict Cumberbatch - Alan Turing
Kiera Knightly - his friend
Alan Turing is famous for breaking the code to the Enigma and shortening the war by about two years, saving over 14 million lives. His machine was a precursor to the computer. He was also a homosexual who was put on hormonal treatments, which, the movie implies, may have lead to his suicide at 41 two years after being put on the treatments.
This is a bit of a gnarly reveiw to write. I am searching for the story in this picture. You must understand, in my opinion, story is always king. Whether the picture is a good story or not is what determines my reaction, not whether the acting was good or the story included elements I enjoy or the story said something I agree with.
A story is obviously nearly impossible to define, rather like love, but I'll take a stab by saying it's a connected string of events told in such a way that they communicate an idea to the audience, using mediums such as film, dialogue, movement, color, and many others, to connect not only with the brain but with the heart. A story is not primarily logical, it is emotional.
And yet this is a story about a man who is primarily logic. The way Cumberbatch plays him reminds me of someone with Asberger's Syndrome. My brother has it so I know it well. That part of the movie was interesting, and Cumberbatch's acting was, per usual, sublime.
My first quibble with this movie is the pacing. It kept taking running starts and leaping over huge periods of time and I had a very hard time keeping up. Perhaps this is just me. On second viewing it would perhaps prove more cohesive.
But my second quibble is that the movie seemed to have an agenda. Now I have stated before that I expect stories to say something. But that's just the thing. The movie cannot say something. The story must say it. At the end of the film, words play over a scene of Alan and his friends at a bonfire. They inform us that he committed suicide two years after being put on hormonal drugs for being homosexual. (My comment is "how awful!" although I will be bold enough to point out that we are left to draw the conclusion that the suicide was induced by the drugs, although that is not directly stated. Still, hormonal drugs sound bad. Those awful british. The end.) But then it follows with a statistic on how many other men were put on hormonal drugs at that time in Britian. It follows that with a statistic on how many men Alan may have saved with his machine during the war.
It's not that I disagree, its just that, in that format, what I'm reading is propaganda by definition. The facts are disconnected with the story. Propaganda is a manipulation of truths to achieve an end. The story is saying something other than what the movie is saying.
This is what the story said to me: It was a story about a young man who was abnormal in many ways and yet became a war hero with hard work. But he had to hide his homosexuality all along the way, and that became a subplot. The subplot didn't say anything, it just influenced the end result of his relationship with the girl and with his friend Christopher. The main story was one of a misunderstood man who was finally understood. The story (a little heavy-handedly, but still) affirmed the fact that each individual is unique and should be accepted for who they are.
The movie, on the other hand, said homosexuality ought to be accepted.
Now, I do have a stance on homosexuality, but I am not taking it now. I am saying it is irrelevant. I am saying that the movie was not about homosexuality and therefore should have been kept to a subplot. The story ended with Alan winning the understanding of others. A note on how he died would have been good exposition for a biopic. The note on how many homosexual men were put on hormonal drugs would be interesting but irrelevant.
But here is a new proposition. Perhaps the story was about homosexuality. Perhaps it intended to say that homosexuality ought to be accepted. In that case, it should have focused on the relationships and relegated the Enigma storyline to a subplot.
What I'm saying is that this movie went for a double major and ended up falling in the crack between the two.
So instead of coming off as a film about overcoming the odds and embracing the oddballs, the film became a bit of a disjointed roller coaster ride that confused me instead of conflicted me. I wanted to be challenged, instead I feel preached at about an irrelevant issue. On the other hand, if it were about homosexuality, I feel there could have been more thorough discussion and that the climax of the tragedy should have centered on his death, brought on by the hormonal drugs. One story was a victory, a comedy in the big sense. The second story was a tragedy, a moody tale about right and wrong and ethics.
I said yesterday in my discussion on Crimson Peak that a fully formed character justifies any story it takes to get him out. In this particular piece, I feel Alan would have been set off more by the movie picking one story or the other and using the secondary story to color the character instead of get in his way.
Kiera Knightly - his friend
Alan Turing is famous for breaking the code to the Enigma and shortening the war by about two years, saving over 14 million lives. His machine was a precursor to the computer. He was also a homosexual who was put on hormonal treatments, which, the movie implies, may have lead to his suicide at 41 two years after being put on the treatments.
This is a bit of a gnarly reveiw to write. I am searching for the story in this picture. You must understand, in my opinion, story is always king. Whether the picture is a good story or not is what determines my reaction, not whether the acting was good or the story included elements I enjoy or the story said something I agree with.
A story is obviously nearly impossible to define, rather like love, but I'll take a stab by saying it's a connected string of events told in such a way that they communicate an idea to the audience, using mediums such as film, dialogue, movement, color, and many others, to connect not only with the brain but with the heart. A story is not primarily logical, it is emotional.
And yet this is a story about a man who is primarily logic. The way Cumberbatch plays him reminds me of someone with Asberger's Syndrome. My brother has it so I know it well. That part of the movie was interesting, and Cumberbatch's acting was, per usual, sublime.
My first quibble with this movie is the pacing. It kept taking running starts and leaping over huge periods of time and I had a very hard time keeping up. Perhaps this is just me. On second viewing it would perhaps prove more cohesive.
But my second quibble is that the movie seemed to have an agenda. Now I have stated before that I expect stories to say something. But that's just the thing. The movie cannot say something. The story must say it. At the end of the film, words play over a scene of Alan and his friends at a bonfire. They inform us that he committed suicide two years after being put on hormonal drugs for being homosexual. (My comment is "how awful!" although I will be bold enough to point out that we are left to draw the conclusion that the suicide was induced by the drugs, although that is not directly stated. Still, hormonal drugs sound bad. Those awful british. The end.) But then it follows with a statistic on how many other men were put on hormonal drugs at that time in Britian. It follows that with a statistic on how many men Alan may have saved with his machine during the war.
It's not that I disagree, its just that, in that format, what I'm reading is propaganda by definition. The facts are disconnected with the story. Propaganda is a manipulation of truths to achieve an end. The story is saying something other than what the movie is saying.
This is what the story said to me: It was a story about a young man who was abnormal in many ways and yet became a war hero with hard work. But he had to hide his homosexuality all along the way, and that became a subplot. The subplot didn't say anything, it just influenced the end result of his relationship with the girl and with his friend Christopher. The main story was one of a misunderstood man who was finally understood. The story (a little heavy-handedly, but still) affirmed the fact that each individual is unique and should be accepted for who they are.
The movie, on the other hand, said homosexuality ought to be accepted.
Now, I do have a stance on homosexuality, but I am not taking it now. I am saying it is irrelevant. I am saying that the movie was not about homosexuality and therefore should have been kept to a subplot. The story ended with Alan winning the understanding of others. A note on how he died would have been good exposition for a biopic. The note on how many homosexual men were put on hormonal drugs would be interesting but irrelevant.
But here is a new proposition. Perhaps the story was about homosexuality. Perhaps it intended to say that homosexuality ought to be accepted. In that case, it should have focused on the relationships and relegated the Enigma storyline to a subplot.
What I'm saying is that this movie went for a double major and ended up falling in the crack between the two.
So instead of coming off as a film about overcoming the odds and embracing the oddballs, the film became a bit of a disjointed roller coaster ride that confused me instead of conflicted me. I wanted to be challenged, instead I feel preached at about an irrelevant issue. On the other hand, if it were about homosexuality, I feel there could have been more thorough discussion and that the climax of the tragedy should have centered on his death, brought on by the hormonal drugs. One story was a victory, a comedy in the big sense. The second story was a tragedy, a moody tale about right and wrong and ethics.
I said yesterday in my discussion on Crimson Peak that a fully formed character justifies any story it takes to get him out. In this particular piece, I feel Alan would have been set off more by the movie picking one story or the other and using the secondary story to color the character instead of get in his way.