In Graham Moore’s script for “The Imitation Game,” Alan Turning helps the British government triumph against the Nazis — but personal victories prove more complex for the homosexual mathematician in the awards season hopeful.
Moore, an Oscar nominee this year for Best Adapted Screenplay, set out to make a film about numbers that an audience could relate to, but also about a “doomed” love story between a gay man and a straight woman.
“It was always my goal with this film to make the audience feel close to him, to put you inside his head. I hope the audience can look up and feel that they understand this person who is very removed from them in history and time and place and they feel like they’ve gotten a sense of what a tremendous human being he really was,” Moore says in a video exclusive to TheWrap.
The Weinstein Company release sees Cumberbatch’s Turing stationed at elite London code school Bletchley Park, where he and Keira Knightley‘s Joan Clarke are engaged to be married, but must confront their own desires in the face of historic turbulence.
“This sort of doomed romance between a gay man and a straight woman was just this fascinating story I wanted to go through to show sort of a different kind of love,” Moore said.
While Turing’s inner turmoil is crucial to the story, Moore let the incredible events that unfolded at Bletchley be the star.
“Imagine, he’s this mathematician, 27 years old, plucked out of Cambridge. He’s doing incredibly top-level espionage work for the government. His life has suddenly become this sort of real-life spy thriller that he’s living through,” said Moore.
“The Imitation Game” is nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Cumberbatch, Best Supporting Actress for Keira Knightley and Best Director for Morten Tyldum.