“Boyhood” and “Imitation Game” Vie for Oscar

By Mark Brown/Converged Citizen Staff Reporter

The Academy Awards have had a long history of recognizing period pieces, as well as those films with highly original concepts. Two of those films are up for the prestigious Best Picture honour – the ambitious family drama Boyhood and the period thriller The Imitation Game.

A labour of love for writer and director Richard Linklater, Boyhood (IFC Films, USA) follows the trials and tribulations of a Texas family over a 12-year period. The film was shot by the same actors between 2002 and 2014, so the viewer can see the actors mature naturally. The focus of the story is Mason Jr. (Eller Coltrane), and the viewer watches him mature from a six-year-old to an artistic, self-assured young adult. Mason is being moved all over Texas so his mother can complete her education and find a job, living with a stepfather who spirals downward into abuse and alcoholism and experimenting with alcohol and drugs himself as he struggles to find his place in society.

The two constants in Mason’s life are his father Mason Sr. (Ethan Hawke) and sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater). Though Mason Sr. has demons of his own and eventually starts a family with another woman, he is very much in tune to the lives of his children. Samantha is also there to endure the growing pains Mason Jr. is feeling. Going through many changes herself is the mother Olivia (Patricia Arquette) who has endured the pain of failed relationships, financial worry and spousal abuse.

Because the actors were allowed to age on their own and the film was shot periodically over 12 years, it makes the actors’ performances as believable as you can get. As a consequence, the film’s running time is a cramp-inducing two hours, 45 minutes. Arquette (a Best Supporting Actress nominee) steals the show as Olivia and the audience can’t help but feel the pain she has to endure with every setback. Hawke (up for Best Supporting Actor) is also strong as Mason Sr., a man with his own problems, yet someone with an enduring soft spot for his children. The natural progression of the actors is the main story behind this film and if I had a vote for Best Picture, Boyhood would certainly get it.
While Boyhood celebrates the progression of a boy into a young man, The Imitation Game celebrates the eventual victory of democracy through science.

Game (Black Bear Pictures and Weinstein Company, UK) chronicles the extraordinary story of British mathematician Alan Turing (Best Actor nominee Benedict Cumberbatch) and his development of a system that broke the so-called Enigma Code used by Nazi Germany during World War II. The film follows Turing as he forges through his own social awkwardness to develop the computer that would eventually break the Nazi codes. Nevertheless, the film easily points out that the work Turing and his team did may have saved thousands of lives and probably shortened the war by at least two years, and despite his personal flaws, Turing and his work are being hailed.

The viewer sees the brilliant scientist butting heads with his superiors and alienating his colleagues with his often bizarre behaviour. The film portrays Turing as having some form of autism. There is little or no evidence that Turing was autistic, though he did portray some eccentricities.
The film also shows Turing struggling with his homosexuality during a time when it was illegal in Britain. A subplot of the film involves Turing’s professional and personal relationship with Joan Clarke (Best Supporting Actress nominee Kiera Knightley), the only female to pass an entrance exam to get on Turing’s team. Turing helps Clarke get settled on the team and find a place to live. The two are even engaged to marry at one point, but that ends once Turing tells her he’s gay. Years later, when Turing is convicted of indecency charges, the two resume their friendship.

The Imitation Game, directed by Morten Tyldum, painstakingly recreates the process of developing the system that broke the Enigma Code, while delving into the personal hell being experienced by Turing. The film, like Boyhood, is a moving testament of the human spirit – a triumph over evil and an example of perseverance and passion over everything that seems to be wrong with the world.
The motion picture academy loves period pieces and the film could likely get some Academy love when the Oscars are handed out in Los Angeles on Feb 22.