The Imitation Game
OK, so for those who haven’t yet seen it: should you? Here’s my one paragraph summary: imagine that you told the story of Alan Turing—one greatest triumphs and tragedies of human history, needing no embellishment whatsoever—to someone who only sort-of understood it, and who filled in the gaps with weird fabrications and Hollywood clichés. And imagine that person retold the story to a second person, who understood even less, and that that person retold it to a third, who understood least of all, but who was charged with making the movie that would bring Turing’s story before the largest audience it’s ever had. And yet, imagine that enough of the enormity of the original story made it through this noisy channel, that the final product was still pretty good. (Except, imagine how much better it could’ve been!)
I liked The Imitation Game, despite its problems. Here’s a better list of its inaccuracies than I’d have produced.
I liked it reasonably well as a movie, but as most people's introduction to Turing, it's terrible. It makes Turing look like a mentally disturbed asshole, and it ignores the genuine, true tragedy of Turing's life in favor of made-up bs.