Short Take: The Imitation Game

This review originally published at Pol Culture.

The Imitation Game, directed by Morten Tyldum from a script by Graham Moore, is a watchable but fairly substandard piece of award bait. This biopic of British computer-science pioneer Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) gives itself two tasks. The first is to dramatize Turing's behind-the-scenes heroism in World War II. He headed the team of cryptographers who cracked the Enigma code, a supposedly impenetrable cipher system used by Nazi Germany in all its communications. (The solving of the code is estimated to have shortened the war by at least two years and saved millions of lives.) The film's second task is to portray Turing as a martyr to the mores of the time. He was homosexual. A few years after the war ended, he was prosecuted for indecency, subjected to a dubious form of hormonal therapy as punishment, and he committed suicide shortly thereafter. Tyldum and Moore do a poor job of reconciling their two goals. They repeatedly interrupt the Enigma project narrative with flashbacks and flash-forwards. The flashbacks tell of a near-romantic friendship the adolescent Turing had with another boy at boarding school. The flash-forwards deal with his prosecution and its aftermath. The time shifts are confusing at first, and they don't add much to the viewer's understanding of the Enigma story. Turing's homosexuality isn't relevant to the Enigma narrative at all. It's only referred to when he tells other characters about it; he's never shown taking a romantic interest in another man. The Enigma story, at least as presented, isn't terribly interesting in any case. Several of the scenes leading up to the code’s solution are hackneyed filler--Turing’s inability to get along with his co-workers, conflicts with the military brass, and so forth. And one can't take it seriously as history. There are just too many scenes that ring false. The most absurd moment is perhaps when Turing's team, in order to protect Allied strategic interests, decides to withhold news of the breaking of the code from their superiors. (This and many other things in Moore's script have no historical basis.) The film isn't even that interesting as an actors' showcase. Apart from the purring-voiced Mark Strong's too-brief turn as British intelligence chief Stewart Menzies, none of the performers are especially compelling. Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, and the other cast members do solid work, but apart from Knightley's amusingly delivered "Oh" during a briefing scene, they aren't very memorable. The film has solid production values, and Tyldum keeps the pace humming, but that's about it. The script is nominally based on Andrew Hodges' biography Alan Turing: The Enigma. The cinematography is by Óscar Faura. Maria Djurkovic is credited with the production design.

Short Take: Still Alice

This review was originally published at Pol Culture.

Julianne Moore won a belated Best Actress Academy Award for her work in Still Alice. That’s pretty much all the film is notable for. It’s a tastefully made melodrama about a middle-aged Columbia professor (Moore) and the efforts of her and her family to cope after she develops early-onset Alzheimer’s. Her life is close to perfect--a prestigious career, a happy marriage, loving relationships with her adult children--and her fulfillment in it gradually and entirely slips away. Beyond the reversal of fortune the story begins with, there’s not much in the way of irony or dilemma; the film just tracks the professor’s deterioration and plays it for sentimental effect. The only scene that rises above the ordinary is when she tries (and fails) to follow through on a suicide plan. She has no awareness of what she’s doing; it’s darkly farcical and devastatingly poignant all at once. The rest of the picture is fairly conventional, but it’s well done for what it is. Moore capably plays her role, as does Alec Baldwin as her husband, and Kristen Stewart, who appears as their bohemian youngest daughter. The couple’s other two children are played by Kate Bosworth and Hunter Parrish. The screenplay, by the film's co-directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, is based on the 2007 novel by Lisa Genova.

Short Take: The Blacklist, Season 1, Episode 12: "The Alchemist"

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

"The Alchemist," directed by Vince Misiano from a teleplay by Anthony Sparks, shows The Blacklist in its idle mode, and that's not an entertaining one. This episode incrementally advances Reddington (James Spader)'s story while having Keen (Megan Boone) track down the villain of the week. The bad guy this time out is a former genetics researcher (Ryan O'Nan) who enables his über-criminal clientéle to fake their deaths and begin new identities. He knows the authorities need corpses to close their books. So, in order to deceive the forensic investigators, he uses his expertise to fake DNA traces and other markers on murdered stand-ins. The plotting Sparks gives the pursuit lacks twists and suspense. Reddington, on the other hand, is still trying to get to the bottom of the treachery that led to the mayhem of the "Anslo Garrick" two-parter. He found the mole in his operation in the previous episode, and now he's after the one in the FBI's. Producer Jon Bokenkamp has again decided not to treat the turncoat's identity as a mystery with which to tease the viewer. We know that Reddington's looking, we see him with his private cadre of hacker-investigators, and then we find out who the mole is. It's not very engaging, and apart from a amusing bit about real-life Wikileaks mastermind Julian Assange, Spader's lines lack their usual zing. The episode is further brought down by the time spent on Keen and fellow agent Ressler (Diego Klattenhoff)'s respective private soap operas. Ressler finds out his ex-fiancée has ditched her current one because of renewed interest in him, and Keen's marital issues go to a new level when her husband takes an interest in a woman who introduced herself to him at a party. The latter is part of a greater conspiracy, and the first probably is, too, but the supporting characters just aren't compelling enough to make this material of interest. The show is at its best when Spader's Reddington is center stage, and episodes like this one are just marking time.

Short Take: The Blacklist, Season 1, Episode 11: "The Good Samaritan Killer"

This review originally appeared on Pol Culture.

"The Good Samaritan Killer," Season 1, Episode 11, of The Blacklist, features a teleplay, by Brandon Margolis and Brandon Sonnier, which is two stories in one.

The first (and far more interesting) involves Reddington (James Spader) tracking down those responsible for his abduction and torture in the previous episode. His goal is to determine who betrayed him and made the abduction possible. Playing vicious ruthlessness has always come easy to Spader, and his talent for it hasn’t dimmed. Reddington is nothing less than frightening when confronting the various parties in the abduction plot. Margolis, Sonnier, producer Jon Bokenkamp, and director Dan Lerner don’t shy away from the frequently brutal violence he employs, and Spader’s unholy calm in these moments gives it a particular jolt. The mystery of who betrayed Reddington could probably have been handled better. Margolis and Sonnier don’t tease the audience with the person’s identity, or create any suspense working towards the revelation. There’s a lot of tension in the individual scenes, but they don’t really build to a greater whole. But those individual scenes are often ingeniously nasty, and it’s hard to imagine anyone pulling them off better than Spader.

The second story, which gives the episode its title, involves a serial killer (Frank Whaley) that Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone) is profiling and tracking for the FBI. It’s pretty formula stuff. The major weakness of Keen's characterization is present. She is as affectless as a Clint Eastwood character when it comes to violence--she shoots antagonists without blinking an eye or misgivings afterward--but the show never uses it to make a larger point about the character. At least with Reddington, it’s clear he’s supposed to be monstrous.

With regard to future episodes, the final scene has it appear as if the series' set-up will be back in play: Reddington will again be collaborating with Keen and the F. B. I. in taking out the figures who are part of his “blacklist.” And there’s one new element that holds a lot of promise: the mysterious figure (Alan Alda) who ordered Reddington’s abduction is now apparently a series regular. Alda is always terrific at playing low-key sinister. It looks like he’s going to have plenty of opportunities. One can't wait.