New information for our American members. I am afraid most of you will have to wait until Christmas to watch the film. 

"Following a route similar to The King’s Speech, TWC will expand The Imitation Game to six additional markets and about 25 theaters by Dec. 12. The film is going into wide release on Christmas Day."

http://deadline.com/2014/11/the-imitation-game-box-office-debut-per-theater-average-1201302952/

Eight nominations for TIG at the Satellite Awards!  The awards ceremony will take place on 19 February 2015. 
 
The film has been nominated as best film, for best actor, best supporting actress, best director, best score,   best editing, best adapted screenplay, and best art direction & production design. 

Keeping fingers crossed. 

Yet another Imitation Game interview, this one from Deadline: Genius Uncovered: Benedict Cumberbatch's passion for portraying Alan Turing in The Imitation Game shines through.

Hollywood Take (a publication with which I am unfamiliar) analyzes Benedict's (and The Imitation Game's) Oscar chances.

Last edited by REReader (December 7, 2014 10:55 pm)

Liberty wrote:

He also feels that the film should have stuck with the main, code-breaking story.  Maybe that would have worked better as a film - I don't know.

Well, if the code-breaking is the main story for him, then he certainly watched the wrong movie. It would be a completely different film if you concentrated on the code-breaking, it would be a thriller set in WWII and we would have seen completely different things. It might have given more room for the other characters in the film, and it certainlx would have been dramatic, too. But I think you can't do this story justice by not concentrating on Turing. It gives a lot of heart and emotion to the film, which probably some people don't like very much. But I personally think it's paramount.
 

Yes, it is the main part of the film (and Turing is still central during that part).  There are flashbacks and flash forwards.   So there is a central part that is more like a thriller (in fact, it's almost framed as a detective story, with Turing telling the detective about his past), with detours to Turing's relationship with Christopher and to his arrest and "treatment".   I honestly think it would be very difficult to leave that last part out, particularly so soon after Turing's pardon.   It's part of what people see as his story.  Perhaps Christopher could have been left out, but that would mean leaving out one of my favourite scenes!   And also Christopher is very much written into the story - we probably do need that backstory. 

Solar, I think people DO like the heart and emotion in the film.  Why wouldn't they?

From the very beginning it was planned as a film about Turing, not about the history of Bletchley Park. This is at least how I understood it. It is a film which centres on him as human being, his achievements, his personal development and his tragedy. If people want a pure WWII thriller about BP, they can watch the fictional (and heterosexually oriented) "Enigma" if you ask me. 
 

Thanks, Solar, for your explanation.  I haven't come across that view yet.  In the article the "safe" Oscar nominations mentioned were emotional films with a heart too - I suppose that means that audiences, or at least the Oscar panel, do like that. 

Personally, I'd have been happy to see less of the thriller aspect in the film too, but I can see that it works in the film.   And I do like the "lighter" feel of some of it - Turing was so much more than just a tragic hero.   There were always going to be vast bits of Turing's life that would have to be left out, but I don't think it's possible to miss out the events  leading up to his death.   And I suppose I went into it already knowing "the story" so some of the thriller/mystery aspect was lost on me. 

I think some of Morten Tyldem's quotes from here (helpfully linked to in the article REReader posted above), help to show that the thriller/mystery/detective feel was deliberate:

There’s a spy thriller in the middle of this war drama

None of us wanted to make sort of a dusty history lesson. This movie could easily become dark and very serious but we wanted something that would celebrate him, that was engaging, that was thrilling and that was fun. I mean, I wanted there to be a lot of humor in it, because he was so full of life in a way. His life was so rich. He deserves a movie that is engaging that’s not so stuffed down and boring.

We wanted it to be told as a mystery because Alan Turing is a mystery to us, and it’s told through a puzzle. I mean, he was obsessed with puzzles, so the whole ideas was that he had to piece him together to understand him a little bit, to understand that he’s gay. That’s why he’s hiding the break in. You’re piecing the whole character together as the movie goes along and that was the big structural idea of the whole movie. It’s created as a mystery. Like the detective says in the opening, “There’s something about Alan Turing. What is he hiding? What is behind this man?”

I wonder if that's why some of the reviews are a litlle more negative?  If you see it knowing the story, it's going to be a different experience.  If you saw it not knowing anything about Turing, the thriller aspect would work brilliantly and it would be incredible!  And I think the film is aimed at an audience who don't know Turing. 

I don't mean this review, but the others that have been a little negative - they're usually seeing it from the point of view of knowing the story already.   This reviewer seems to expect the film to be seen by somebody who doesn't know the story (which may be most of the audience), which seems to be the angle Morten Tyldum was going for.  Just about every review seems to be positive overall, though. 

I don't want to give any spoilers, but I thought the parts with the teenage and older Alan tied in very well to the main story - the film connected them up. 

Mod's note:
Please use the other thread I opened for this reason if you are discussing the contents of the film. Many of us have not had the chance to see it yet.