Thoughts upon seeing The Imitation Game

[captivebird]

Today I went to see The Imitation Game, the biographical drama based on the secret war work and tragic demise of Alan Turing (1912-1954) starring Benedict Cumberbatch. The male support cast (including Charles Dance, Rory Kinnear, Mark Strong and Matthew Goode) also had me interested, as did the subject matter given the somewhat bizarre posthumous

Comments

[rakspatel]

Thank you for this. I really enjoyed reading your review and hearing what you saw in, and thought of, the film :)

[captivebird]

A day on I'm still wondering why the film didn't move me as much as I expected it to. Was it just too slickly done? It was a story that needed to be told and all involved did it justice. Yet I came away with a sense of sad completion rather than one of ongoing outrage. Perhaps because the focus was so totally on Turing himself. The fictional Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with all its very personal betrayals was way more devastating to me as a story. And as a real life re-enactment, Pride seemed more or an emotional roller coaster. Weird!

[reallyginnyf]

We are so looking forward to the U.S. release next week, Russ moreso than me because he's the bigger Cumberbatch fan. Unfortunately, it looks like our very conservative local theater will not be showing it because of the subject matter (I wish I were kidding, but that's my town) so we'll have to trek into St. Louis to catch it somewhere.

[captivebird]

I'll be interested to hear what you think if you have time to post some thoughts. The film plays fast and loose with aspects of actual historical accuracy as one would expect, but it's a cleverly constructed work to explain and honour a wronged man (and by proxy many others), and there's no doubt that BC put his heart into it. But what I really want to see is more Sherlock. :-)

P.S. I guarantee you'll also be transported into the HP universe temporarily during the King's Cross scene.

[maetgnisar]

another must see for me. Thanks for the review.
Kiera is in a lovely way easy and friendly with BC, and so is he, like they are good old friends. And are they?

P, I wathched "Kill your darlings" and it turned out to be the film I'd been needing for a long time, not realising that myself. Something, a ghost, from the old past, that now seems to be almost completely forgotten - all those youthful dreams, admiration of something or someone bright and smart, all those hopes and fears, all those open perspectives, absense of any limitations and ability to think freely and produce fresh ideas and concepts. And just like I felt light and free right after the closing titles, to the same hogh degree I now clearly realise that, and how, I now am errevocably older, if not worse - just old, in absolute terms...

[captivebird]

I don't know how well BC and KK really know each other. Work wise they were both in Atonement [2007], though didn't have any specific scenes together. But this is the Benedict I like to see - happy and relaxed. So far no video or images of him like this with his fiancée!

I can definitely see how Kill Your Darlings marks a passage from youthful aspiration and experimentation, to mature reflection and acceptance. It's a more restful place to be I find... but doesn't mean that fantasy has to stop :-)

[maetgnisar]

alas, fantasy is all that is left in such a 'restful' place as maturity (... when once it used to be real-life experience and discoveries...
What it was like for you to realise one day that you've grown mature, have left youth behind and is already growing old? How did you cope with realising of your own incapability to do and, what is worse, to WANT to do things you used to do?

[captivebird]

To be quite honest, I am more content now, with a good pressure-free inner life, than I ever was when younger living life more fully for real. I've watched a proportion of my contemporaries go through serious mid-life crisis of one sort or another and am quite relieved that I don't feel compelled to join them! Although I raged a little in my early forties, wondering why I hadn't achieved more in every sphere of life, I came to realise the reason is that I truly have no personal ambition, plus prefer a quiet existence with reliable companionship to anything more demanding. I've always played a supporting role and prefer things that way. I've always been very self-contained. I found fandom and that has sustained and satisfied any wilder notions and keeps me young in mind if not in body! Maybe I'll find it harder when my children are truly independent, when my parents have gone, when Mr T retires? Right now though, the life role I inhabit is still quite clearly defined and it is enough... so long as I still have books and the internet!

It's about Sherlock Holmes

[kehlen]

Could you please clear my confusion?

I have just realized that I have no idea what 221B means

Re: It's about Sherlock Holmes

[captivebird]

There are, confusingly, many ways that a house/flat may be numbered as number/letter in the UK. For example