dvd of the week
Alan Turing was the gay British man who broke the Nazi codes during World War II and more or less invented the computer. Despite his key role in winning the war, Turing was arrested for his homosexuality and forced to undergo chemical castration to avoid prison; he killed himself after a year of horrible hormone therapy. The film based on his life rewrites history to make the story work for the camera, and you can be offended by Graham Moore’s Oscar-winning screenplay or you can go with the flow. If you do the latter, Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing and Keira Knightley as his best friend and brief fiancée are delightful; he’s quirky and cold and confused and she’s aggressive and brilliant and kind. The film is handsomely directed by Morten Tyldum, and it is an engrossing experience, if an over-praised one.
