This movie proves that life really is stranger than fiction. It is a dramatized account of how the British cracked the secret code used by the Nazis during World War II to communicate their daily battle strategies. Until that point, German U-boat and Panzer attacks devastated Allied forces. The breakthrough came in large part from Cambridge math professor Alan Turing, played by Benedict Cumberbatch. A complete social misfit, Turing persisted in building a machine to decipher the millions of possibilities presented by Enigma, the Nazi coding machine. And he did it in the face of hostile opposition by everyone from his co-workers to the Admiralty. And even after he ‘cracked the code,’ his Asperger’s detachment enabled him to apply the discovery strategically, so the Germans never realized their battle plans were being intercepted. Turing’s efforts were heroic and estimated to have shortened the war by two years and 14 million saved lives. Nonetheless, his own life ended in ignominy because he was outted as a homosexual after the war, a crime in England until 1967. This is a touching movie that illustrates the injustice of social censure through the life of one remarkably different man.
Should You See It? Absolutely, don’t miss it! —D.W.
Viewed at Landmark Theatres Plaza Frontenac cinema
