The story of Alan Turing is basically tailored made for a film adaptation: high intrigue, complexity, societal struggles – it really has it all. What I was most surprised by was that The Imitation Game didn’t just take his story for granted and turn in a vanilla biopic treatment. The script does an excellent job in providing a broad picture of Turing’s major accomplishments, his personality, and his persecution. Benedict Cumberbatch is playing the tortured genius role fairly well and excels when Turing’s cracks begin to show, and for once I found Keira Knightley to be an asset to a story rather than a distraction. As far as biographies go this year, The Imitation Game is the most fascinating and the least formulaic.