A woman in the audience asked British star Benedict Cumberbatch if she could “taste [his] deliciousness’’ during a Q & A following Monday night’s Toronto International Film Festival premiere of his thoroughly engrossing biopic “The Imitation Game.’’
He politely demurred, but his legions of fans, Oscar voters and everyone else will soon get to savor his sensitive and cerebral performance as math genius Alan Turing, who saved millions of lives and shortened World War II by developing a room-size computer to break the Nazis’ seemingly impregnable Enigma code — and was prosecuted after the war for violating England’s draconian anti-homosexuality laws.
Justifiably considered a lock for a Best Picture nomination, “The Imitation Game’’ effectively frames the triumphant and tragic life of the man considered the father of modern computing with Turing’s 1952 arrest for “indecency,’’ followed by chemical castration and his suicide with a cyanide-poisoned apple two years later (Turing, awarded the Order of the British Empire for his wartime services, was officially pardoned by Queen Elizabeth in 2013).
Spurned as a youngster in school because he’s “different” (and refuses to be modest about his supersmartness), Cumberbatch is recruited from Cambridge on the eve of World War II in 1939 by a military desperate to break the German Enigma code, which was changed daily. Turing proposes that the trillions of possible combinations can only be analyzed in a timely fashion by building an electrical computing machine like the one he described in a 1936 academic paper.
The admiral in charge (Charles Dance) and the chess champion (Matthew Goode) leading a famous band of British code breakers oppose the genius’ expensive project in favor of old-school methods — but Turing impudently goes over their heads with a letter to prime minister Winston Churchill to win approval.
His colleagues aren’t thrilled, but the eccentric and aloof genius receives important advice on how to rally their support from the only female member of the code-breaking team, Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley) — another brainy pioneer to whom Turing is briefly engaged until he confesses his preference for men in one of the film’s most touching scenes.
The team’s struggle to perfect Turing’s enormous machine — significantly named after a male childhood crush who died — is brilliantly detailed in Graham Moore’s script. But when Christopher finally works, it has to be kept top secret. And it falls upon Turing to make the awful calculations about just what findings can be safely used to protect lives without arousing the suspicions of the Germans, who would immediately redesign their entire Engima system.
Norwegian director Morten Tyldum (“Headhunters’’) helms at a more crackling pace than normal for biopics without missing any of the essentials. His excellent supporting cast includes a standout Mark Strong as the suave head of British intelligence, who fully appreciates Turing’s strategic importance (and secrets) and is willing to run interference for him to win the war.
“The Imitation Game,’’ which hits US theaters on Nov. 21, is a triumph for Cumberbatch — who, here, as in his very different TV performance as Sherlock Holmes, proves he’s not only as “yummy’’ as that woman in the audience described him, but excels at playing characters with beautiful minds.