#1: The Imitation Game
There are many big names in Hollywood – but at 19 letters
Benedict Cumberbatch is surely one of the biggest
This quirky British actor is slowly gaining himself a
reputation playing intense characters such as Khan (Staff Trek: Into Darkness),
Stephen Hawking (TV series Hawking), Sherlock Holmes (TV series Sherlock),
Julian Assange and now legendary mathematician and war time code breaker Alan
Turing
The film follows the story of Bletchley Park – where the
team test with the seemingly impossible challenge of breaking the Enigma code were
based, focusing on Turing and his relationship with the rest of the team, although
it does so in a semi-flashback some years later when Turing is brought in for
questioning following a break-in at his apartment which initially leads to him
being suspected as being a Soviet spy.
Benedict Cumberbatch is a highly skilled actor who manages
to make Turing both an outsider and also ultimately likeable character, who
struggles to communicate with others due to his obsession with the giant
computer he is trying to build – the first of its kind. Keira Knightley is also
strong as the main female, who due to restrictions on women working on the
project has to perform her mathematics almost secretly. How much of the story,
aside from the focus on the Enigma machine is true is debatable – however this
is a tense and enjoyable story that keeps you interested from start to end and
at the end, when you discover the eventual fate of Turing (for those who don’t
already know at the start) you feel genuinely angry on his behalf and for those who suffered the same fate
This is well worth watching if only for the story of Bletchley Park - which may have been one of the best kept secrets of WW2
#2 The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
When the original film came out a couple of years ago it was
the surprise hit of the year – a film about a bunch of old age pensioners who,
for various reasons, decide to retire to a dilapidated hotel in India where
they find a new lease of life. The film
appealed to a whole generation of cinema goers who were being overlooked in the
rush to fill the cinemas with films about robots hitting each other and with a
strong ensemble cast that included almost all of Britain’s acting elite, a
plethora of exotic locations and plenty of humour it was an enjoyable and oddly
life-affirming film
This sequel carries on where the first film left off – with the
residents of the now flourishing hotel finally settling in as the young
proprietor tries to juggle expanding his empire, the imminent arrival of a
hotel inspector and his forthcoming nuptials.
Cue Richard Gere turning up, wooing the ladies and much
confusion as to whether he is/isn’t the expected Hotel Inspector (a plot that
many have likened to an episode of the sit-com Fawlty Towers)
Pretty much everyone in the cinema seemed to enjoy the film
and I have to say it was certainly nice enough to look at whilst it was
happening, but there was something slightly missing from the film that I couldn’t
quite put my finger on.
Perhaps it was
the way that the plot twists seemed to be sign-posted for all to see or that
the action all seemed a bit by the book but there seemed to be something of the
heart of the original story that was missing from this.
All in all it was an enjoyable enough film at
the time and it carried enough good will through from the first film to get
away with it – but it left me feeling oddly like I’d eaten an average takeaway
meal: when you go for the meal you are thinking how much you are looking
forward to it, and you scoff it down quickly enough – but at the end you still
feel slightly empty and want to bite into something a bit more tasty
#3: Pride
And then we come to Pride.
It’s almost impossible to describe to anyone not from England
what the words “1980s”, “Margaret Thatcher” and “Strike” evoke but the Miners
Strikes of the 70s and 80s were one of the most turbulent times in our recent
history – on the one hand you had an ancient industry that was struggling to cope
in the modern world, competing against foreign fuels and finding the
communities that lay behind the industry struggling to earn a decent wage and
on the other hand you had a strong Conservative government determined to break
the power of the Unions after decades of strikes no matter what the cost to the
people – starving them out and turning the Police on them wherever necessary
And in the middle of all this, in a true story that history
had all but forgotten, was a small Gay community surrounding a special interest
bookshop in London that decided that they could associate with what the miners
were experiencing at the hands of the police (having experienced brutality at the hands of the Police and others) and decided that
they wanted to help
Finding that none of the unions wanted to be publically
associated with a Gay and Lesbian group for fear of the negative publicity they
approached a small welsh mining community directly and went on to become one of
the most reliable sources of food and fundraising during the latter days of the
strike
The fact that over a week after seeing this film I’m
struggling to write this review without getting emotional tells you something
about what an absolutely amazing film this was: funny and shocking, tearful and
uplifting with a cast that included Bill Nighy (who seems to get everywhere),
Imelda Staunton and Ben Schnetzer as Mark Ashton (the leader of the group) – it
really is a film that you will find yourself going back to mentally time and
again after the end credits roll
Clearly, being a period piece, this film uses some of the
language and prejudices of the times and for me one of the most uplifting
things of seeing this at the cinema was to hear the gasps of shock at the way
people were treated purely due to their sexuality and to realise how much those
attitudes have changed – although admittedly I was saddened to see that in the
USA all references to Homosexuality have been removed from the DVD case to help
increase sales (I’d be interested to sit in the front room of anyone who buys
the film without knowing the content to see what they make of it as a result!)
I can’t possibly recommend this film enough – it is the best
film I have seen in a long, long time and anyone who walks away from the ending
without a tear in their eye is no friend of mine
