In the beginning, to investigate a robbery at Turing’s place, 2 cops head into Turing’s house. They see Turing on the floor sweeping up some spilled cyanide in powder form. He tells them that there is nothing to investigate. In fact, Turing's home was burgled by the friend of a man who he had possibly spent the night with. The man broke into Turing's home knowing that Turing was already under investigation for his homosexuality, which was illegal in Great Britain, so he felt that Turing would never complain to the authorities.
Turing walks into Bletchley Park and meets Commander Denniston who looks and sounds like a relic from Admiral Nelson's era. Both need the other regardless of their mutual contempt. Just when Turing blows it by saying that he cannot speak German, he utters the word 'Enigma' (the German cryptic code machine) and that gets Denniston's attention.
He is introduced to the fellow codebreakers. They ask him out to lunch. Turing though, plays around with semantics and comes across as arrogant. Frustrated by the lack of funding and facilities, he confronts Denniston and asks him who he takes his orders from.
Turing writes to Winston Churchill, who gives Turing command over the code-breaking team as well as the ₤100,000 Turing needs to build the machine that he believes can crack the Enigma code.
Turing fires 2 members from the team and publishes a crossword puzzle as a test to fill up 2 slots in the team. Joan is late for the 2nd test and yet, she completes it in 4’23’’. Turing welcomes her to the team.
Later, Joan has to leave as she is 25 and has to get married and Turing, despite being homosexual, proposes to her. She accepts.
At the engagement party, Turing confessed to John that he is homosexual. John isn’t surprised as he thought so.
That night, a girl talks about a family's words exchange that gives him an idea to crack the codes by the Enigma machines. It works.
They crack the code, but Turing decides not to tell Denniston yet. Because if they do so, the Nazis will know the Enigma has been compromised and change the code.
Peter’s brother is serving on one of those ships and pleads with Turing to save them. He refused.
Turing and Joan tell Gen, Stewart that they only use the information from the machine to protect their cover. Stewart agrees. Turing also discovers that John is a double agent. He tells Turing to keep quiet or else he will squeal about Turing’s homosexuality.
Surprisingly, Stewart tells Turing that he knows John is a double agent and he placed John in the team, so they monitor what was leaked to the Soviets.
After the war, the police investigation in Turing’s house continues. Detective Robert Nock finds out that Turing used to meet a man at the bar. He is unable to find Turing’s war records. He obtains a classified file, but the envelope is empty.
After calling Turing to the police station, Nock hears Turing's extraordinary story for the first time and is gob smacked. Turing mentions The Imitation Game-whether human can have a conversion with a computer in the blind and not tell whether it is human or machine.
Years later towards the end of his life, Joan who has now married visits Turing and he calls off the engagement saying that he felt it was dangerous for her to be attached to him as he told Joan he is a homosexual. Joan had insisted that they could be together. He has been prescribed oestogen hormone medication to cure his homosexuality and lives in isolation. Joan leaves after she offers him encouragement and reminds him what he achieved in life.
The film ends with the note about his end and his legacy to mankind- the machines called computers today.
The Imitation Game is a 2014 American historical film based on the 1983 biography Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges. In 1951, during the interrogation by Nock-a detective investigating a robbery at Turing’s House, Turing tells of his time working during WWII. In 1939, under the direction of Commander Denniston, mathematician Alan Turing joins a cryptography team to crack the Enigma machine which people think unbreakable. Turing's team, including Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), analyze Enigma messages while he builds a machine to decipher them. Turing and team finally succeed and become heroes, but in 1952, the quiet genius encounters disgrace when authorities reveal he is homosexual and send him to prison. Turing is convicted of gross indecency and, in lieu of a jail sentence, undergoes chemical castration so he can continue his work. Clarke visits him in his home and witnesses his physical and mental deterioration. She comforts him by saying that his work saved millions of lives. The epilogue reveals that after a year of government-mandated hormonal therapy, Turing committed suicide on June 7, 1954. In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a posthumous Royal Pardon, honoring his work which would eventually go on to create the modern computer.
Words to idea: cryptanalyst, genius, supercomputer, divergence, non-conformist, mathematician, unbreakable
Thesis Statement: During World War II, the English mathematical genius 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.
