Matthew Beard

A biopic that plays out like a cerebral thriller, this film traces the life of Alan Turing, the British maths genius who essentially invented the computer and won World War II before being driven to suicide by a cruel legal system. So it's striking that Norwegian filmmaker Morten Tyldum (Headhunters) infuses the film with humour, energy and intelligence. And with an astounding performance from Benedict Cumberbatch, he also manages to find layers of nuance in first-time screenwriter Graham Moore's on-the-nose script.

We meet Cumberbatch's Alan as a 27-year-old Cambridge professor in 1939, recruited by MI6 officer Menzies (Mark Strong) and military commander Denniston (Charles Dance) to join the team at Bletchley Park as they try to crack Germany's Enigma code. An eccentric genius, Alan struggles to fit in with his colleagues (Matthew Goode, Allen Leech and Matthew Beard), but he manages to connect with Jean (Keira Knightley), whom he recruits even though she's not allowed to work alongside the men. Then Alan begins to build his ambitious, unprecedented computing machine. No one understands how it can help decode Enigma, but they can see that he's on to something. Meanwhile, Alan has his own secret: he's gay, which is a criminal offence at the time.

The story is told with three interwoven timelines, with the central plot being the race to break Enigma and turn the tide of the war against the Nazis. Alongside this are scenes set in 1951, when a policeman (Rory Kinnear) interviews Turing about his homosexuality. And there are also flashbacks to 1928, when the young Turing (a superb Alex Lawther) has his first encounter with cryptology, romance and pretending to be someone he's not. The links between these three strands feel somewhat pushy, all hinging on the line: "It's people no one imagines anything of who do things no one can imagine." But Tyldum allows plenty of space for the actors to add uneven edges that draw out the meaning in more subtle, involving ways.

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Solid acting and adept filmmaking help make up for the fact that this film asks us to spend a couple of hours in the presence of a group of truly despicable characters. They're played by some of the brightest (and most beautiful) rising stars in the movies at the moment, but each one of these young men is vile to the core. So the fact that these are supposed to be Britain's brightest and best hope for the future makes the film pretty terrifying.

It's set at Oxford University, where the elite Riot Club (including Douglas Booth, Sam Reid, Freddie Fox, Matthew Beard, Ben Schnetzer and Olly Alexander) are on the lookout for wealthy white students to complete their 10-man membership. They find suitable candidates in new arrivals: the sneering Alistair (Sam Claflin) and conflicted Miles (Max Irons), whose one drawback is that he's seeing a common girl (Holliday Grainger). After the rigorous initiation process, Alistair and Miles are welcomed to the hedonistic gang at a lavish dinner in the private room of a country pub. But things turn nasty as they drunkenly hurl abuse at the pub manager (Gordon Brown), his daughter (Jessica Brown Findlay) and a high-class hooker (Natalie Dormer) they hire for the night.

Based on the play Posh by screenwriter Laura Wade, the film is centred around this increasingly chaotic dinner party. Although nothing that happens is particularly surprising, because these young men are such relentlessly bigoted, misogynist snobs that it's impossible to believe they belong anywhere other than prison. They certainly don't deserve their self-appointed status as the top students at Oxford, who are getting debauchery out of their systems before taking the lead in British politics and business. But then, that's precisely Wade's point, and she makes it loudly. Thankfully, director Lone Scherfig balances things by offering glimpses into these young men's dark souls while skilfully capturing the old-world subculture and a strong sense of irony.

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