The 87th Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, February 22, 2015 and will be televised on ABC. One of the movies gaining a lot of nominations is “The Imitation Game” which tells the story of Alan Turing and stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley.
The movie is nominated for Best Picture, Morten Tyldum is nominated for Best Director, Cumberbatch is nominated for Best Actor and Knightley is nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The movies was named one of the Top 10 films of 2014, received five nominations for the Golden Globes, three nominiations at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and nine BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) nominations including Best Film and Outstanding British Film. Its was also honored by the Human Rights Campaign for bringing Turing’s legacy to a wider audience. As of January 2015, the film has grossed a total of $120.2 million worldwide against a $14 million production budget making it the top-grossing independent film release of 2014.
There are so many things to love about this movie. It is based on the book “Alan Turing: The Enigma” by Andrew Hodges and tells the story of Turing, a British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and pioneering computer scientist who was a key figure in cracking Nazi Germany’s naval Enigma code. This helped the Allies win World War II. He was later criminally prosecuted for his homosexuality, chemically castrated and committed suicide. It sheds light again on Bletchley Park, a part of WWII that I personally find fascinating. I wrote about it previously here and here.
The movie features a fabulous cast in addition to Cumberbatch (one of my favorite actors EVER) who of course stars in Sherlock which I wrote about here. Keira Knightley has starred in many films including Pride & Prejudice which I discussed previously in this post about Jane Austen movies. It co-stars Allen Leach (Branson for you Downton Abbey fans), Charles Dance (Game of Thrones),and Matthew Goode (of Death Comes to Pemberley which I covered).
I definitely recommend this movie. It combines a historical story with fabulous actors into a story that is both uplifting and sad at the same time. In fact, I’d recommend it even if it didn’t star one of my favorite actors ever.
My English Obsession 