The Imitation Game(2014)

Plot Summary

• In 1951 Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Headquarters intercepts a message that Alan Turing has been robbed at his place. Alan is now known as a professor at Cambridge. Two policemen, Nock (Rory Kinnear) and Staehl, investigate the mathematician Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) after an apparent break-in at his home. When Nock and Staehl reach the Turing residence, he insists that nothing was stolen and insults the detectives (saying that they could not catch the culprit if he was standing in front of them) and asks them to leave. Nock finds it suspicious that Turing went to great lengths to insult them as if he was hiding something.Robert Nock, the detective from before, finds out that Alan's records are classified. He doesn't know why a math professor would have classified records and becomes suspicious. He uses a typewriter to falsify a document, allowing him to secure Alan's service records. Detective Nock shares with Superintendent Smith that Alan's classified military file is empty. His war records aren't classified. Someone has burned and erased them. They suspect he is a Soviet spy.Detective Nock and Superintendent Smith are told by a sergeant that he has found out that Alan is a homosexual. He has been caught with a male hustler, who later robbed his house. That was the piece of information that he was hiding from the police, not that he's a spy. The detective is sure Alan is hiding something else, so he asks for him to be arrested so he can interrogate him. During his interrogation by Nock, Turing tells of his time working at Bletchley Park. The detective asks if machines can think. The detective asks him about the paper he wrote, The Imitation Game. Alan tells him it is a test to determine whether something is a machine or a human being. The detective asks him what he did during the war and Alan tells him he worked at a radio factory. Detective Nock knows this isn't true.Attention then switches to 1927, when the young Turing is unhappy and bullied at boarding school. He was picked on for having a form of OCD, keeping the carrots and peas separate during lunch. His classmates pour food on him and bury him under the floorboards. Turing learned early that violence stops when one removes the satisfaction it provides to the perpetrators. He develops a friendship with Christopher Morcom (Jack Bannon), who sparks his interest in cryptography, and develops romantic feelings for him. Christopher shares with him a book on codes and ciphers. The awkward Alan compares cryptic messages with how people talk, saying one thing while hiding true intentions beneath their words (which he doesn't know how to decipher).Before Turing can confess his love, Christopher dies unexpectedly from bovine tuberculosis.When Britain declares war on Germany in 1939, Turing travels to Bletchley Park, where he meets Commander Alastair Denniston (Charles Dance) of the Royal Navy. Turing is 27 years old and already an accomplishes mathematician. He became a fellow at Cambridge at 24, and he published a paper on advanced Cryptography techniques when he was 23. Turing says that he is agnostic to violence. The Commander asks why Alan wants to work for the government; he replies he doesn't. He mentions that he's not very political, and the Commander says it may be the shortest job interview ever.Turing did not know German and Denniston did not like his attitude to war. The Commander calls for Alan to be removed by his secretary. Turing demonstrates extraordinary deductive powers by stating that Denniston is trying to break the enigma code, used by Germans for all major communications. Turing says that Denniston needs him on the team as he is not making any progress. If the Allies can crack the code, it will end the war. The Commander says everyone thinks Enigma is unbreakable; Alan says to let him try and they'll know for sure.Turing joins the cryptography team of Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), John Cairncross (Allen Leech), Peter Hilton (Matthew Beard), Keith Furman, and Charles Richards. The team are trying to break the ciphers created by the Enigma machine, which the Nazis use to provide security for their wireless messages. The team has access to an enigma machine. But the encoding changes with the setting of the machine. Therefore, to decode the messages, one needs to know the correct setting of the machine, by which it was encoded. Every night at midnight, the Germans refresh the settings. Intercepting the first message every morning at 6 A.M., the code-breakers only have eighteen hours each day to crack their code before it changes and they must start from scratch.The machine has 159 million million million possible settings. 10 men checking 1 setting per minute, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, would take 20 million days to check all the settings. And the settings are changed every day by the Germans.Turing is difficult to work with and considers his colleagues inferior. He works alone to design a machine to decipher Enigma. Denniston refuses to fund construction of the machine (which is estimated to cost 100,000 pounds). Denniston says that wars are only won by following orders and a chain of command. Alan asks who the Commander's commanding officer is and he is told Winston Churchill. Turing argues that only a machine can beat another machine. Turing writes to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who puts him in charge of the team and funds the machine.Turing fires Furman and Richards calling them mediocre linguists and poor code-breakers. He then places a difficult crossword in newspapers to find replacements. The war rages on, with many hiding out in bomb shelters. The handful that managed to solve the puzzle are gathered together to take a test. One young woman, Joan Clarke, shows up late because her bus had a flat tire. They think she is in the wrong room and remain skeptical as she tells them that she has solved the crossword puzzle. Alan tells her to take a seat. He tasks the room to solve a very difficult puzzle in six minutes that took Alan himself eight minutes. Surprising them all, Joan solves it in five and a half. Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), a Cambridge graduate, surpasses Turing's test.Joan and one other man are kept afterwards and told that they are not allowed to share what they are about to be told or they'll be executed for high treason. They are ordered to lie to everyone they know about what they are going to be doing. Joan asks what he is referring to. She is told she will be helping to break an unbreakable Nazi code and win the war.By 1940, the supercomputer is being hooked up in a secret hut. Alan is concerned when Joan does not show up. He goes to her home and tries to convince her parents that she's very necessary at the radio factory (official cover for their true purpose) that wants to employ her. Joan's parents will not allow her to work with the male cryptographers. Turing arranges for her to live and work with the female clerks who intercept the messages and shares his plans with her.Clarke helps Turing warm to the others, who begin to respect him. She says it doesn't matter how smart he is; Enigma is smarter and Alan needs all the help he can get - but his team won't help him if they don't like him. The next time he sees them at their workshop, he brings apples under Joan's suggestion to give them something. He then tries to tell a joke.Turing's machine, which he names Christopher, is constructed but cannot determine the Enigma settings before the Germans reset the Enigma encryption each day. In narration, Alan tells us that the British were literally starving to death. Every week, Americans would send 100,000 tons of food, and every week, the Germans would send it to the bottom of the ocean. Every night at midnight, a bell sounds, telling them their day's work has been wasted (since the code is reset at midnight). Frustrated, Hugh visits Alan, tinkering with his machine (referred to as Christopher, named after Alan's childhood friend). A frustrated Hugh grabs a wrench to destroy the machine, but the others hold him back. Hugh tells him that the machine is useless and there are legitimate ways to help in the war. One of the others, Peter, explains that his brother and cousins are actually fighting in the war while they have nothing to show for all of their work because of the machine. Alan is adamant that the machine will work.The next day, Alan enters the hut to find military police rifling through his desk while the other code-breakers watch. Commander Denniston explains that there is a spy in Bletchley Park and they suspect it's one of them. The Commander shows Alan a telegram that was intercepted on its way to Moscow, which is encrypted with a key phrase. They suspect Alan because he's arrogant, has no friends or romantic attachments, and is a loner. Commander Denniston says he will no longer have to fire him - he can hang him for treason if he's caught.Joan and Alan bond over the codes. Hugh Alexander approaches, telling Alan that if they run the wires on Christopher diagonally, they'll eliminate rotor positions 500 times faster. Alan is able to utilize this idea. The machine is turned on; it is the very first digital computer, and it works. They wait to see if it can reveal the day's Enigma settings. In Denniston's office, he is told that the machine is not producing any results. He surprises Alan at the hut, who barricades the door, trying to keep him out. They force the door open and turn it off. Commander Denniston tells him his machine doesn't work because it hasn't broken Enigma. Denniston's associate from the home office is upset about spending a hundred thousand pounds with nothing to show for it. Alan tries to defend his machine but it has not Decrypted a single German message.Denniston orders the machine destroyed, and Turing fired, but the other cryptographers threaten to leave if he goes. Commander Denniston grants one more month or they're all gone.After Clarke plans to leave on the wishes of her parents, Turing proposes marriage, which she accepts. He proposes with a piece of electrical wire, rolled into a ring. During their reception, Turing confirms his homosexuality to Cairncross. John is sympathetic and tells Alan that he already suspected that for some time. John suggests that Alan keep it a secret because homosexuality is illegal and, on top of that, Denniston is looking for any excuse to put Alan away.After overhearing a conversation with a clerk about messages she receives, Turing has an epiphany, realizing he can program the machine to decode words he already knows exist in certain messages. A German coder always opening his first message with a standard plain-text German script reveals enough of the day's Enigma code for Christopher to quickly decode all the day's messages. They get into their hut and Alan pours out previously Decrypted messages. He points out that Christopher does not have to search through every possible setting; the computer can search for ones that produce words he knows will be in the message. They realize the entire 6 A.M. weather reports end in "Heil Hitler". They can have Christopher search for the words "weather," "heil" and "Hitler" to crack the code. They test it on a 6 A.M. message. Christopher comes to a stop. They take the letters it produces and run back to the Enigma machine, typing in the same letters. They are able to decode a message. They've cracked the code!Recalibrating the machine, it quickly decodes a message, and the cryptographers celebrate.Discovering a convoy is about to be attacked, Turing realizes that if they suddenly react to prevent it the Germans will know Enigma is compromised and change it. Therefore, the team cannot act on every decoded message, so they do not act to save the convoy although Peter begs them, as his brother is part of it. Turing creates a statistical model to choose the warnings to send to maximize destruction and minimize detection.Discovering Cairncross is a Soviet spy, Turing confronts him. He argues that the Soviets are allies, working for the same goals, and threatens to retaliate by disclosing Turing's sexuality. When the top MI6 agent Stewart Menzies (Mark Strong) appears to threaten Clarke, Turing reveals that Cairncross is a spy. Menzies already knew, leaking misinformation to the Soviets for British benefit.Turing urges Clarke to leave Bletchley Park, telling her he is a homosexual. She always suspected but insists they would have been happy together anyway. Fearing for her safety, Turing says he never cared for her, and only used her for her cryptography skills. Although heartbroken, Clarke stays on, knowing how important it is. She refuses to bow down to what Turing or her parents want her to do, or what they think of her decisions.After the war, Menzies has the cryptographers destroy the evidence, as MI6 wants governments to believe they have unbreakable code machines. The team should never meet again or share what they have done.In 1952, Turing is convicted of gross indecency and undergoes chemical castration instead of prison, so he can continue his work. Clarke visits him, witnesses his physical and mental deterioration, and tries to comfort him.Turing committed suicide on June 7, 1954, after a year of government-mandated hormonal therapy. In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted him a posthumous Royal Pardon. Historians estimate that breaking Enigma shortened the war by over two years, saving over 14 million lives; and Turing's work was an important step towards today's computers.

Storyline

• Alan Turing tries to crack the German Enigma code with help from fellow mathematicians while attempting to come to terms with his troubled private life. It is based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing. The film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II. — Studio Canal Out in the world, one who is compelled to create is considered abnormal. Society is hard on the non-conformist. A creator may solve impossible puzzles with his brain or write symphony; he turns nothing into something. Success in his endeavor may result in the masses of society clustering at the median to call him "genius." But, beware: this means they can neither understand the achievement nor hope to equal the mind who made it. The same masses who eagerly accept his gifts with the one hand will turn around and push him into a snake pit with the other. Such is the cautionary tale of Alan Mathison Turing, master of the puzzle and father of the modern computer. — LA-Lawyer In 1939, newly created British intelligence agency MI6 recruits Cambridge mathematics alumnus Alan Turing to crack Nazi codes, including Enigma -- which cryptanalysts had thought unbreakable. Turing's team, including Joan Clarke, analyze Enigma messages while he builds a machine to decipher them. Turing and team finally succeed and become unsung heroes, but in 1952, their quiet genius leader encounters disgrace — Jwelch5742 With Europe succumbing to Adolf Hitler 's suffocating grasp, the British government recruits the country's best scientists to stop the Nazis. However, the Allies are running out of time. Now, only a radical, out-of-the-box approach could save millions of lives. As a result, Alan Turing joins a hand-picked team of accomplished code breakers at Bletchley Park, determined to crack the code behind the infamous Enigma Machine, the Germans' top-secret, military-grade encipherment device. But to turn the tide of the war, Alan and his fellow cryptanalysts have their work cut out for them: they must first figure out a reliable technique for cracking the Enigma's millions of combinations. — Nick Riganas