The Imitation Game

Today I went to the movies. I watched The Imitation Game. After an exam, I thought it would be a good way to relax. And the movie is in for an Oscar, so "it must be good", I thought. 

I didn't relax. 

The movie is extraordinary.

I must warn you: this text may contain spoilers. It is more than a film critic though. This text speaks up my mind. This text is my thoughts. This text is me.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays an amazing role. He is one of the Oscar nominees for Best Actor and I definitely think he should win. And I haven't even watched the other movies and the other performances (so maybe you shouldn't trust my "expert" opinion but I assure you he does a bloody great job). 

I cried like a baby, I must admit. It moved me, the whole film. Well not just the film or the actors but the story itself. It's almost unbelievable. I am absolutely touched by him. Not Cumberbatch, not his performance - but the man, Alan Turing. Not the character but the actual, real man. He created a machine - what we now call "computer" - that managed to win the War. Because of it thousands of lives were saved. Not to mention that because of him we now have what we have. We are now able to post in our little blogs, to play our little computer games, to communicate with the other side of the world, to perform surgeries that save lives. 

He was also different. He liked men. He was convicted because of it. The British government gave him a choice: he could go under hormonal treatment to "change" him or he would go to prison - where he could not work, he would never see his machine again. He would be alone. Because the only thing he had, his machine, would be lost. He would be alone. 

He chose the treatment for he could not...be alone. 

After two years of treatment - which changed him, of course, his health, his appearance, his mind - he committed suicide. 

...And here we are. After the movie we just go back to our little and insignificant lives. We go home, turn on our computers and post the photos we took before the movie started, we write on our little and insignificant blogs, we seek likes and comments and we chat and gossip about that person we just found out that is like Alan Turing - gay. 

So I cry. Because there has to be more than this. More than people gossiping, more than people doing songs about asses, more than useless tv shows (that we are only able to watch, probably, because of him).

Sometimes I think I should only watch comedies. "I have in me the weight of the world", a Portuguese writer once said. 

Watching this movie, thinking about it makes want to be a better person, makes me want to do something that matters. Maybe we are all here for a reason, maybe we all have a purpose. Those singers? I don't know. Future pharmacists like me? I don't know. Actors? Well, maybe their purpose is to inspire us to want to be better. People like Alan Turing? Oh, those make the Oscar winners look like support actors. 

The real winner, the real man, the real hero was Alan Turing, who suffered like he shouldn't have, who was alone...who killed himself at the age of 41.