English mathematician Alan Turing’s life was about as extraordinary and fascinating as they get in modern times. In fact, modernity owes a lot to Turing, who in the 1930s began dreaming up something called a “universal machine”. A “digital computer”. In addition to getting the ball rolling on creating the devices that permeate every goddamn minute of our daily lives, he was also a brilliant cryptanalyst and helped the Allied forces defeat Germany by cracking the Nazi’s Enigma code, which they used to transmit encrypted messages within their ranks. He was the definition of a hero, though his pivotal role in ending the war was kept a secret for many years. He was convicted of being homosexual in 1952 by the British government and put on hormonal treatment to temper his libido. He killed himself two years later.

Like I said: extraordinary and fascinating. Turing’s life was one of deep complexity, but with The Imitation Game, director Morten Tyldum and screenwriter Graham Moore prune and polish his story down into an accessible, digestible prestige piece. They take a wholly unconventional life and present it conventionally, and while the film takes very few risks and won’t blow your mind like, say, Turing’s papers on artificial intelligence, it just…works. The film really, really works. And after all, the ultimate goal here is to up Turing’s visibility in the social consciousness so that we don’t forget his invaluable contributions and, more importantly, the injustice that tragically shortened his life (he was 41 years old when he died). What better way to spread the word than with a movie that’s approachable, suspenseful, and well-acted?

Benedict Cumberbatch is given the honor of portraying Turing on screen, playing him with emotional complexity, nuance, and sensitivity. He’s terrific, and without his presence the film would likely deflated. We see flashbacks of Turing’s early years when at boarding school where he fell for a boy named Christopher, who introduced him to the art of cryptography, as well as glimpses of his final years, pre-conviction, as he sits in an interrogation room with a detective who suspects high treason rather than homosexuality. But the film largely concentrates on Turing and his Enigma team at Bletchley Park, the British military’s code-cracking hub, as they desperately rack their brains to crack Enigma under threats of shutdown by the dastardly Commander Denniston (Charles Dance).

Cumberbatch’s Turing is a vaguely autistic outsider who’s at once intellectually superior and socially inept. His team at first finds him insufferable; his mind works on too high a level to recognize even the tiniest social cues. The jokes derived from Alan’s inability to register sarcasm recall Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy, but with more pathos lying underneath the laughs. When one of his team members, John Cairncross (Allen Leech) tells Alan they’re all going out for lunch, he doesn’t hear an invitation, but a statement of fact. He comes off as a smug, arrogant jerk, when in truth he simply can’t compute (pardon the pun). In addition to Cairncross, the group also includes playboy chess champ Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), sole woman member Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), and young Peter Hilton (Matthew Beard).

What eventually endears Alan to the rest of the crew are his unimpeachable contributions to the fight against Enigma. He builds an expensive proto-computer (named Christopher, curiously) with government money, prompting Denniston to literally pull the plug and promise to kick Alan off of the project for good. Hugh and the rest of the lads come to Alan’s defense (at the last minute, dramatically) and barely save Alan’s hide. With a bashful smile, he realizes he’s made some true friends. The film is most engrossing when it focuses on the team’s race against the clock as they scurry around Bletchley, giddy about one of Alan’s breakthroughs. These moments are truly thrilling and ignite the film just as it begins to meander.

What’s missing from the story, however, is a true sense of what’s at stake: millions of Allied soldiers’ lives. The intrepid men with guns on the ground feel so distant that you almost don’t notice how absurd it is for the Enigma team to “go get some lunch” as young men and women die every minute. The film was made for under $20 million, so it’s understandable that we don’t get a full portrait of the war (the film occasionally glances at military vehicles in action from afar), but it feels like more could have been done to emphasize the urgency of the mission.

What the film is really about is the beauty of unorthodox thinking, something the British government took painfully for granted in their appalling mistreatment of Turing following his “crimes” of homosexuality (he got pardoned by the Queen just last year). There’s a mantra in the film that’s repeated three times: “Sometimes it’s the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine.” It’s clumsily written and doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue (thank goodness for Cumberbatch’s always-impeccable delivery), but the sentiment carries value.

Since Chan-wook Park emerged into the cinema scene with his critically acclaimed Vengeance Trilogy, he has been a director to pay close attention to. When it was announced that Stoker would be his first English-language film, naturally everyone’s ears perked. But going into Stoker with the exact same expectations based on his previous work would be ill-advised. The story here is more subdued and is slower paced than his previous work. In the film there is some violence (though much less is actually shown), incestuous suggestions, and good ol’ fashion that is often found in his work, everything is just more submissive here.

India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) is a peculiar girl who just lost her father on the arrival of her eighteenth birthday. This event makes the already bizarre and reserved teenager even more withdrawn as India was always very close to her father. Not making the matters any better is the fact that India has always been distance with her mother Evelyn Stoker (Nicole Kidman). What makes the story unsettling is the arrival of Uncle Charles (Matthew Goode), an odd mannered character himself, who India never even knew existed before the funeral.

For no real apparent reason it is suddenly decided that Charles will be staying at the mansion with family for an undetermined amount of time. From the very beginning India had an uneasy feeling toward her father’s brother, but her mother’s eerily attraction towards him only added fuel to the fire. Her suspicions about him keep adding up the longer he is around and the film does a great job of filling the viewer with those same uncertainties.

The story is not entirely cohesive as it starts down several paths but does not quite finish on any of them. This can be off-putting to some people as the film seemingly cannot make up its mind on where to go, but the intention is to keep everyone involved guessing. The frustrating part is the end result is not as interesting as some of the other possibilities that it explored. That, and it builds itself up to be a mystery, but it is solved well before the conclusion.

All three leads do a great job with what their role demanded. The weakest of the bunch would probably have to go to Nicole Kidman, but only because her character is the least interesting. Mia Wasikowska is simply outstanding as the dark introvert who discovers some sinister secrets about her family. Then there is Matthew Goode, who at first seems awkwardly out of place, but then ends up nailing the role brilliantly as his character develops.

The camera techniques in Stoker are incredibly well-crafted and original, just what you would come to expect from the acclaimed filmmaker. Most of the shots had to be meticulously planned out and synced together. A great example of this is when the film cuts back and forth between two different characters in different locations walking out of doors and opening others in perfect rhythm. All of that happens while the same nature documentary on the television, which talks about sibling rivalry and is therefore relevant to the story, plays in the background in each of their locations.

Considering Park’s previous work, some might be a little disappointed that Stoker tells a much more conventional story with a final payoff is not as grand as Oldboy’s was. But the way the story is displayed is certainly as artful and poetic as anything Park has done to date. His sense of style is evident in the very beginning when the opening credits playfully interact with what is happening on the screen. For example, the text of the credits may be placed beside a rock on screen and when the character moves the rock, the text moves along with it. While the style does outweigh the story, Stoker is a welcoming first English-language film from Park that I hope is not his last.

Stoker is Available on Blu-ray and DVD on June 18th

Ever since Park Chan-wook’s breakthrough hit Oldboy premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004, he has exploded onto everyone’s radar as a director to follow. His latest film, Stoker, is the director’s first film in English and stars some big-named American celebrities; Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska, and Matthew Goode, just to name a few. It was announced today that Stoker will be available on Blu-ray and DVD on June 18th.

Official Synopsis

Following the tragic death of her father on her eighteenth birthday, India Stoker (Wasikowska) meets Charlie (Goode), her charismatic uncle, whom she never knew existed. When Charlie moves in with India and her unstable mother (Kidman), both are drawn to his charming and calming demeanor. But it soon becomes clear that Charlie’s arrival was no coincidence, and that the shocking secrets of his past could affect India’s future…or shatter it completely.

Blu- ray Special Features

• An Exclusive Look: A Filmmakers Journey
• Deleted Scenes
• Theatrical Behind the Scenes: Mysterious Characters, Designing the Look, Creating the Music
• Red Carpet Premiere: Emily Wells’ performance of “Becomes the Color”
• Free Song Download of “Becomes the Color” by Emily Wells
• UltraViolet
• Hypnotherapy
• Image Galleries and more!

STOKER Blu-ray & DVD Specs

Street Date: June 18, 2013
Prebook Date: May 22, 2013
Screen Format: Widescreen 2.40:1
Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD MA / 5.1 Dolby Digital DVD, English 5.1 Descriptive Audio, Spanish: 5.1 Dolby Digital / 2.0 Surround Dolby Digital DVD, French: 5.1 Dolby Digital / 2.0 Surround Dolby Digital DVD
Subtitles: English, Spanish
U.S. Rating: R
Total Run Time: 99 minutes
Closed Captioned: Yes