I saw this at the science museum preview on Wednesday - Cumberbatch is great, but the film does play it very safe, and outside of Turing the other characters are presented as little more than cardboard cutouts. Worth seeing for Cumberbatch's performances though.
edit: has a beautiful score, btw - best of the year to date for me.
I'm really surprised how little discussion there is about this film.
Saw it yesterday and thought it was brilliant. Benedict Cumberbatch was superb as Alan Turing.
It really was scandalous how he was treated after the war considering it was estimated that he helped shorten the war by two years and saved 14 million lives,just because he was gay.
This one's up there in my top five films of the year.
I saw this today and thought it was brilliant. The period atmosphere was perfect and I am very glad that they filmed the outdoor shots actually at Bletchley Park. I went there last autumn and it is very interesting. They have a replica of the Colussus and also some Enigma machines there.
This pretty much lived up to my expectations, an interesting story decently told with some very good performances from the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Mark Strong & Charles Dance.
Overall it's a very decent historical drama that did more than enough to get an 8/10 from me...
I saw this today and thought it was brilliant. The period atmosphere was perfect and I am very glad that they filmed the outdoor shots actually at Bletchley Park. I went there last autumn and it is very interesting. They have a replica of the Colussus and also some Enigma machines there.
It's somewhere I'd really like to visit. My late dad was there towards the end of WW2, and I never did find out exactly what he did, but apparently there were 10,000 people there altogether.
I saw the film a couple of days ago, and was riveted throughout. I thought there were some excellent performances, and a surprising amount of humour.
I'm really surprised how little discussion there is about this film.
Saw it yesterday and thought it was brilliant. Benedict Cumberbatch was superb as Alan Turing.
It really was scandalous how he was treated after the war considering it was estimated that he helped shorten the war by two years and saved 14 million lives,just because he was gay.
This one's up there in my top five films of the year.
Ditto. It's one of my films of the year too. It was a thrilling, moving film and Cumberbatch was superb, as was the boy who played Turing as a youngster.
I won't say much about the plot because other ignoramuses like me might not know much about Turing's private life, but I didn't know how things turned out and I cried at the end.
I'm not sure if I do or don't agree with those critics saying the film played it too safe re his sexuality. I mean, I get why they may be pissed off that it squandered the chance to really hammer home how important the fact that he wasn't just gay but sexually active was. But I'm not sure what they think was lacking. Sex scenes? He does talk about it quite openly and the story of his first love is so moving. But there were mostly pensioners at my screening...not sure they're the right demographic for anything more overt.
Ditto. It's one of my films of the year too. It was a thrilling, moving film and Cumberbatch was superb, as was the boy who played Turing as a youngster.
I won't say much about the plot because other ignoramuses like me might not know much about Turing's private life, but I didn't know how things turned out and I cried at the end.
I'm not sure if I do or don't agree with those critics saying the film played it too safe re his sexuality. I mean, I get why they may be pissed off that it squandered the chance to really hammer home how important the fact that he wasn't just gay but sexually active was. But I'm not sure what they think was lacking. Sex scenes? He does talk about it quite openly and the story of his first love is so moving. But there were mostly pensioners at my screening...not sure they're the right demographic for anything more overt.
I think if the director had had another half-hour to play with, he could perhaps have gone through the sorry, sordid and disgraceful story of how Turing was treated and condemned, and the slow years until he was (we assume) hounded to death. However, he clearly wanted this to be a story of triumph against all odds (millions of odds!) and how Turing came to solve Enigma.
Turing did talk about his sexuality - this was frequently referred to - and the police's response was made quite plain, as well as the public's. Was it playing safe? Or would concentrating on what happened at the end taken away the main focus of the film? It was definitely highlighted and referred to, and we did see the effects, but it wasn't dwelt upon.
The performances of Cumberbatch and Knightley (in her final scene with BC) were excellent, the pre and post WW2 parts of the film were well done but I thought the film was let down a bit by the Bletchley sections which suffered from oversimplification of Turing's role at Bletchley and dramatic licence to make the creation of the first Bombe more thrilling.
Saw it yesterday, great performance by Bendict Cumberbatch, and fine support from Keira Knightley, Mark Strong and Charles Dance - liked the early scenes with him and BC. Rory Kinnear starting to look like his dad, I think, don't know if his real life counterpart was as sympathetic as he was portrayed. Afterwards I was saying to my wife "that wasn't right and this wasn't quite accurate" and she said "but did you enjoy it?", and I did.
I would not mind seeing this film as Benedict Cumberbatch has gone from strength to strength over the past few years as outlined in his performances in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Fifth Estate.
It's big and glossy, well written, and hits all the notes you'd expect but I can't shake the feeling it's emotionally manipulative in a way that you can see the strings they're trying to pull all too clearly. I thought the scene where the guy was upset
because his brother was on one of the ships about to get hit
was too much and didn't work.
Ultimately this film is clearly designed as Harvey Weinstein's attempt to win the 2015 Academy Award for Best Motion Picture of the Year. Nothing more, nothing less. And it showed.
Ultimately this film is clearly designed as Harvey Weinstein's attempt to win the 2015 Academy Award for Best Motion Picture of the Year. Nothing more, nothing less. And it showed.
It won't win, trust me. As much as he might try, there really are better films out there. This certainly isn't deserving of Best Picture.
Ultimately this film is clearly designed as Harvey Weinstein's attempt to win the 2015 Academy Award for Best Motion Picture of the Year. Nothing more, nothing less. And it showed.
It does come across as calculated Academy-bait at times, but the awards-push will of course rest on how it's received. It hasn't been noted as one of the early big hopefuls though - Foxcatcher, Birdman, and Inherent Vice are all shaping up well apparently.
Similar to The King's Speech, it's only getting a very minor pre-Christmas release in the US, and like that it's a case of seeing how it fares afterwards. I imagine The Baftas are probably a better opportunity to haul in a few gongs for this.
I saw this today and thought it was brilliant. The period atmosphere was perfect and I am very glad that they filmed the outdoor shots actually at Bletchley Park. I went there last autumn and it is very interesting. They have a replica of the Colussus and also some Enigma machines there.
The manor house in the film is actually Joyce Grove, some other scenes were filmed at Bicester.
Brilliant film, very moving and ultimately sad. Keira Knightley's performance reminds me of some of the women I met when I worked for The Civil Service in the 60s.
Saw this today but it was spoilt by the story of the actual code-breaking being immensely over-simplified and over-dramatised. Did Turing really crack the code single-handedly? Were there really so few people involved? There were supposed to be thousands! (And did a theorist such as Turing really design, build and test such a prototype machine all by himself too? It would have taken years.)
I think the Bletchley Park side was handled much better in the film Enigma.
I agree with the comment about 'Enigma'; for example the scene where they are trying to work out the clues to the possible machine settings, the 'crib', is more authentic although again the 'race against time' to prevent ships being sunk is a cinematic invention.
However, 'Enigma' is also flawed, although it was never written as a real-life account, and I think an accurate film about Bletchley Park's work would be close to impossible. It would not work cinematically.
[QUOTE=anthony david;75795792]The manor house in the film is actually Joyce Grove, some other scenes were filmed at Bicester.
Brilliant film, very moving and ultimately sad. Keira Knightley's performance reminds me of some of the women I met when I worked for The Civil Service in the 60s.[/QUOTE]
Are you saying that it wasn't actually the Bletchley Park mansion or that the mansion is called Joyce Grove? If it is the former, it looks very like Bletchley Park!
Are you saying that it wasn't actually the Bletchley Park mansion or that the mansion is called Joyce Grove? If it is the former, it looks very like Bletchley Park!
I was at Bletchley a few weeks ago and I remember thinking the house in the film didn't look like the one I saw. You'd need a bit of post-production CGI to hide the present-day infrastructure around the site.
Saw this yesterday - as a gay man with a techie boyfriend and a mathematician father I had obviously heard a lot about Alan Turing in my life before seeing this film but I was ignorant enough to not fully appreciate quite how important he was and how much we owe him. I was pretty moved by the final half hour and it seems a fitting tribute.
Cumberbatch was marvellous, as always, but this is a real highlight for him. Keira Knightley was surprisingly great as Joan (not putting her down, I'm just not usually a fan) and the direction and script were superb. I have to give special mention to Desplat's wonderful score - I'm a huge fan and as soon as I saw his name in the opening titles I was excited. He didn't let me down and this should be one of the main contenders for Best Original Score this year.
Are you saying that it wasn't actually the Bletchley Park mansion or that the mansion is called Joyce Grove? If it is the former, it looks very like Bletchley Park!
It was Joyce Grove, (Google for further information and pictures).
I used to work at Bletchley Park and although some of it was filmed there I didn't recognise any of it. The building in your photo was used by the GPO training school in the 60s.
I saw this tonight and loved it. Aside from cracking the codes, I thought the personal side-story of what Alan went through was heart-breaking.
I loved the last part:
The last line of the writing got to me; 'We now call them computers' - this film really made me realise just how much we owe to Alan and all those who worked at Bletchley Park.
Comments
edit: has a beautiful score, btw - best of the year to date for me.
Saw it yesterday and thought it was brilliant. Benedict Cumberbatch was superb as Alan Turing.
It really was scandalous how he was treated after the war considering it was estimated that he helped shorten the war by two years and saved 14 million lives,just because he was gay.
This one's up there in my top five films of the year.
Overall it's a very decent historical drama that did more than enough to get an 8/10 from me...
It's somewhere I'd really like to visit. My late dad was there towards the end of WW2, and I never did find out exactly what he did, but apparently there were 10,000 people there altogether.
I saw the film a couple of days ago, and was riveted throughout. I thought there were some excellent performances, and a surprising amount of humour.
One of my favourite films this year.
Okay, but nowt special.
Ditto. It's one of my films of the year too. It was a thrilling, moving film and Cumberbatch was superb, as was the boy who played Turing as a youngster.
I won't say much about the plot because other ignoramuses like me might not know much about Turing's private life, but I didn't know how things turned out and I cried at the end.
I'm not sure if I do or don't agree with those critics saying the film played it too safe re his sexuality. I mean, I get why they may be pissed off that it squandered the chance to really hammer home how important the fact that he wasn't just gay but sexually active was. But I'm not sure what they think was lacking. Sex scenes? He does talk about it quite openly and the story of his first love is so moving. But there were mostly pensioners at my screening...not sure they're the right demographic for anything more overt.
I think if the director had had another half-hour to play with, he could perhaps have gone through the sorry, sordid and disgraceful story of how Turing was treated and condemned, and the slow years until he was (we assume) hounded to death. However, he clearly wanted this to be a story of triumph against all odds (millions of odds!) and how Turing came to solve Enigma.
Turing did talk about his sexuality - this was frequently referred to - and the police's response was made quite plain, as well as the public's. Was it playing safe? Or would concentrating on what happened at the end taken away the main focus of the film? It was definitely highlighted and referred to, and we did see the effects, but it wasn't dwelt upon.
I thought it an excellent film.
Ultimately this film is clearly designed as Harvey Weinstein's attempt to win the 2015 Academy Award for Best Motion Picture of the Year. Nothing more, nothing less. And it showed.
It won't win, trust me. As much as he might try, there really are better films out there. This certainly isn't deserving of Best Picture.
Similar to The King's Speech, it's only getting a very minor pre-Christmas release in the US, and like that it's a case of seeing how it fares afterwards. I imagine The Baftas are probably a better opportunity to haul in a few gongs for this.
The manor house in the film is actually Joyce Grove, some other scenes were filmed at Bicester.
Brilliant film, very moving and ultimately sad. Keira Knightley's performance reminds me of some of the women I met when I worked for The Civil Service in the 60s.
I think the Bletchley Park side was handled much better in the film Enigma.
I agree with the comment about 'Enigma'; for example the scene where they are trying to work out the clues to the possible machine settings, the 'crib', is more authentic although again the 'race against time' to prevent ships being sunk is a cinematic invention.
However, 'Enigma' is also flawed, although it was never written as a real-life account, and I think an accurate film about Bletchley Park's work would be close to impossible. It would not work cinematically.
Brilliant film, very moving and ultimately sad. Keira Knightley's performance reminds me of some of the women I met when I worked for The Civil Service in the 60s.[/QUOTE]
Are you saying that it wasn't actually the Bletchley Park mansion or that the mansion is called Joyce Grove? If it is the former, it looks very like Bletchley Park!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v317/GillP/001_zps6cfbde51.jpg
I was at Bletchley a few weeks ago and I remember thinking the house in the film didn't look like the one I saw. You'd need a bit of post-production CGI to hide the present-day infrastructure around the site.
Cumberbatch was marvellous, as always, but this is a real highlight for him. Keira Knightley was surprisingly great as Joan (not putting her down, I'm just not usually a fan) and the direction and script were superb. I have to give special mention to Desplat's wonderful score - I'm a huge fan and as soon as I saw his name in the opening titles I was excited. He didn't let me down and this should be one of the main contenders for Best Original Score this year.
Really loved it, highly recommended.
It was Joyce Grove, (Google for further information and pictures).
I used to work at Bletchley Park and although some of it was filmed there I didn't recognise any of it. The building in your photo was used by the GPO training school in the 60s.
I thought I might possibly enjoy it but wasn't expecting it to be so good and so sad.
Cumberbatch was flippin' outstanding and hopefully he will be rewarded at the Oscars for his marvellous performance.
I loved the last part: