Enigma is a decent little WWII movie that tries to blend historic and fictional drama. There are moments when both the real and the pretend are quite thrilling, but they end up detracting from each other so much the film is left flatfooted at its conclusion. Based on a novel by Richard Harris, too many essential details of the book are awkwardly crammed in during the last half hour. Watching Enigma is like taking an enjoyable car ride but then realizing you're late and rushing the final few miles to your destination.
The historical aspect of the tale concerns the small group of British geniuses enlisted to crack the Nazi's infamous Enigma code. As the movie begins, the Germans have changed the code and left the British completely in the dark just as three huge supply convoys set out from the U.S. to Britain. The codebreakers have 4 days to crack Enigma to prevent U-boats from destroying one or all of those convoys.
The fictional element of the story is Thomas Jericho (Dougray Scott), the leading genius among the codebreakers who's returned to work after a stint in an asylum. The intense but halting Jericho fell in love with the beautiful and mysterious Claire (Saffron Burrows), who drove him to a nervous breakdown when she sought out and then spurned his advances. Jericho is still obsessed with Claire, but finds she's disappeared without a trace or explanation. In his efforts to discover what happens to Clarie, Jericho is ably assisted by the almost irresistibly cute and spunky Hester Wallace (Kate Winslet), a secretary at the codebreakers' military base. Jericho is also confounded and harassed by Wigram (Jeremy Northram), a smilingly hard British intelligence agent who has multiple agendas.
Both parts of Enigma are fairly good on their own merits, though the struggle to solve the Nazi code and win the war is understandably more compelling than the mystery of a missing woman, no matter how involved it may be. The difficulty is that by splitting its attention, the movie is never able to fully commit to either piece of itself. Though Enigma admirably tries to weave the two together and have them mirror each other, the on screen time spent with each dilemma inevitably gives short shrift to the other. As a viewer, you want to spend more time with the codebreakers AND you want to spend more time with the slowing budding romance of Jericho and Hester AND you want to spend more time on the conflicts between the intellectual men of science and the practical men of war AND you want to spend more time with the subtly blunt confrontations of Jericho and Wigram AND you want to spend more time with Jericho's memories of Claire. This is a case where you're left wanting more, but it's not a pleasant sensation.
And as Enigma winds to a finish and the story starts throwing new things at you to set up and explain its big ending, it confirms the imbalance you've been feeling is the real product of a script that needed some things cut out and other things expanded to take their place.
While legitimate, that complaint should not distract from the reality that this is a pretty good and entertaining production. It's well acted, well directed and the individual scenes are well written. While not a modern classic of the WWI genre, it's well worth it to spend a couple hours wrapped up in this Enigma.
The historical aspect of the tale concerns the small group of British geniuses enlisted to crack the Nazi's infamous Enigma code. As the movie begins, the Germans have changed the code and left the British completely in the dark just as three huge supply convoys set out from the U.S. to Britain. The codebreakers have 4 days to crack Enigma to prevent U-boats from destroying one or all of those convoys.
The fictional element of the story is Thomas Jericho (Dougray Scott), the leading genius among the codebreakers who's returned to work after a stint in an asylum. The intense but halting Jericho fell in love with the beautiful and mysterious Claire (Saffron Burrows), who drove him to a nervous breakdown when she sought out and then spurned his advances. Jericho is still obsessed with Claire, but finds she's disappeared without a trace or explanation. In his efforts to discover what happens to Clarie, Jericho is ably assisted by the almost irresistibly cute and spunky Hester Wallace (Kate Winslet), a secretary at the codebreakers' military base. Jericho is also confounded and harassed by Wigram (Jeremy Northram), a smilingly hard British intelligence agent who has multiple agendas.
Both parts of Enigma are fairly good on their own merits, though the struggle to solve the Nazi code and win the war is understandably more compelling than the mystery of a missing woman, no matter how involved it may be. The difficulty is that by splitting its attention, the movie is never able to fully commit to either piece of itself. Though Enigma admirably tries to weave the two together and have them mirror each other, the on screen time spent with each dilemma inevitably gives short shrift to the other. As a viewer, you want to spend more time with the codebreakers AND you want to spend more time with the slowing budding romance of Jericho and Hester AND you want to spend more time on the conflicts between the intellectual men of science and the practical men of war AND you want to spend more time with the subtly blunt confrontations of Jericho and Wigram AND you want to spend more time with Jericho's memories of Claire. This is a case where you're left wanting more, but it's not a pleasant sensation.
And as Enigma winds to a finish and the story starts throwing new things at you to set up and explain its big ending, it confirms the imbalance you've been feeling is the real product of a script that needed some things cut out and other things expanded to take their place.
While legitimate, that complaint should not distract from the reality that this is a pretty good and entertaining production. It's well acted, well directed and the individual scenes are well written. While not a modern classic of the WWI genre, it's well worth it to spend a couple hours wrapped up in this Enigma.