The Imitation Game

This was the best film of last year, of the ones that I've seen
It begins in 1951 when Alan Turing's (Benedict Cumberbatch's) apartment is robbed and ransacked though nothing appears to be missing, but the police start an investigation nevertheless, with one particular cop (Rory Kinnear) convinced that he was a Soviet spy during the war.
He starts telling his story, and it is interesting one.
Turing applies for a job at Bletchley Park but he is a mathematician and knows absolutely no German so Commander Denniston (Charles Dance) is not impressed but Turing knows that the British want the German machine Enigma solved so they can win the war. He gets the job but is immediately at odds with his fellow co-workers, Peter (Matthew Beard), John (Allen Leech) and Hugh (Matthew Goode). His plan is different than solving the impossible code that the Germans change every day. His idea is to come up with a machine that will solve every code instantly but Denniston hates the plan and all the money it will cost, but luckily he sends a letter to Winston Churchill who appoints Alan in charge much to Denniston's dismay.
Alan, along with another superior, Menzies (Mark Strong) set out to hire some new employees, one of whom is Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley). She gets the job but cannot keep it because her parents don't think it would be proper, though Turing wants her because she is brilliant so he sneaks her in under the guise of another job there and goes to her room at night where they work secretly on code-breaking.
Problems arise including the one where Denniston believes that one of the team members is a Soviet spy and then nearly threaten to shut down his operation, though by this time, Turing made nice with his team members so they stick up for him and Turing is allowed a little more time. Joan's parents force her to return home so she can find someone to marry, desperate for her to stay, Alan proposes despite being homosexual, something which John picks up on, though doesn't care much. At the time, homosexuality was illegal in Britain.
However, once the machine finally solves Enigma, and know the position of all the German submarines and such, they can't help everyone because they can't let the Germans know that they solved it, or else all their hard work would be for naught. It is devastating playing God, letting the German submarines sink a British ship carrying tons of citizens, including Peter's brother so the film takes on a whole new level.
They use statistics to decide which attacks they should prevent and which ones they should let happen and Turing finds out that John is the actual Soviet spy, though Menzies knew that the whole time. He wanted John on the team so he could feed him the information he wanted the Soviets to know and now wants Turing to help him decide which information he should let John leak to the Soviets and such. Alan breaks up with Joan and she is upset despite knowing the whole time that he was homosexual.
Of course, we all sort of know how the film ends and it ends sadly. Sure, the war ends and everyone must separate, pretend that they never knew each other because the whole thing was classified. Turing goes back to the university and gets arrested in 1951 for homosexuality. He picks castration and taking hormones to 'cure' him rather than prison so he  can continue working on his machine, dubbed 'Christopher' after a boy he knew years earlier in primary school.
Alan committed suicide in 1954 and was not pardoned until 2013. But his contribution to World War II was massively significant. The film mentions that historians believe his invention ended the war two years earlier and saved roughly fourteen million lives and that is truly remarkable. He made a huge difference.
Cumberbatch delivers a truly devastating performance, certainly his best one that I have seen and is undoubtedly worthy of his Oscar nomination, making his character both extremely unlikable and sympathetic. Knightley is also brilliant, also deserving of her nomination.
The film weaves in and out of three different time periods (including a time when young Turing was horribly bullied in primary school) flawlessly, and forces the viewer to think. Did Turing do the right thing in confessing for his 'crime' of homosexuality or sort of playing God? Should he have lied to Joan, saying that he didn't actually care for her? And how dare Britain treat a hero so cruelly? Can a man think like a machine or can a machine think like a man?
In addition to having an excellent plot, the film has the whole package with great cinematography, set decoration, costumes, editing and score, some of which also received nominations. This is a film that everyone should see. It portrays the outsider, a character that everyone, in some way, shape or form, can relate to. Your heart will ache for Alan, as it should. Grade: A