Enigma (2001)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Michael Apted

Writers (WGA):

Robert Harris (novel)
Tom Stoppard (screenplay)

Release Date:

28 September 2001 (UK)

Genre:

Drama | Mystery | Romance | Thriller | War

Tagline:

10,000,000,000,000,000+ combinations - 24 hours to get it right

Plot:

A young genius frantically races against time to crack an enemy code and solve the mystery surrounding the woman he loves.

Plot Keywords:

Flashback | Secret Code | Code Breaking | Encryption | WWII

Awards:

3 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Dougray Scott	...	Thomas Jericho
Kate Winslet	...	Hester Wallace
Saffron Burrows	...	Claire
Jeremy Northam	...	Wigram
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau	...	Puck (as Nikolaj Coster Waldau)
Tom Hollander	...	Logie
Donald Sumpter	...	Leveret
Matthew Macfadyen	...	Cave
Richard Leaf	...	Baxter
Ian Felce	...	Proudfoot
Bohdan Poraj	...	Pinker
Paul Rattray	...	Kingcome
Richard Katz	...	De Brooke
Tom Fisher	...	Upjohn
Robert Pugh	...	Skynner

Also Known As:

Enigma - Das Geheimnis (Germany)

MPAA:

Rated R for a sex scene and language.

Runtime:

119 min

Country:

UK | USA | Germany | Netherlands

Language:

English | German

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Canada:14 (New Brunswick/Nova Scotia/Prince Edward Island) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Ontario/Saskatchewan) | Singapore:PG | Iceland:L | Malaysia:U | Finland:K-11 | Germany:12 (f) | Australia:M | Netherlands:12 | Portugal:M/12 | Spain:7 | Sweden:7 | UK:15 | USA:R (certificate #37517)

Filming Locations:

Adelphi Building, John Adam Street, Strand, London, England, UK

Company:

Broadway Video

Trivia:

The Bletchley Park mansion in this film is not *the* actual Bletchley Park mansion, but another property. According to the tour guides at the real thing, the real Bletchley Park did not look enough like Bletchley Park to the production company to have been used in the film.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: In the final scene, in London after the war (1946), Hester steps off the pavement and we see double yellow lines painted at the kerbside (denoting No Parking). These road markings were introduced much later.

Quotes:

Tom Jericho: I like numbers, because with numbers, truth and beauty are the same thing.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The 100 Greatest War Films (2005) (TV)

Soundtrack:

One O'Clock Jump

An overload of elements - and it's clear which element should have gone

Firstly: no, it's NOT a scandal that Alan Turing isn't mentioned. He couldn't be mentioned without being made into a character and given a role in the story - which would mean, among other things, placing him on the list of suspected traitors, at least temporarily, which would either be a slur, or (assuming it wasn't a slur because we'd immediately know him to be innocent) a constraint on the mystery. Throwing in a clearly fictitious genius was the right thing to do. (Turing was the most important, but not the only, genius involved.)

The main problem with "Enigma" is that emphasis is badly misplaced. I was interested in (a) how the war effort was going, (b) whether Bletchley Park would come up with solutions in time, (c) HOW the process of breaking codes was actually carried out, and (d) when Tom would get over his idiotic infatuation with that annoying blonde chick and fall, as any sensible person would, for the dynamic and twenty-times-more-attractive Hester (Kate Winslet). I won't swear that I was interested in these things in that order, but I WAS interested in them to the exclusion of everything else; the mystery subplot involving Claire that for some reason becomes THE plot, was a distraction. Its twists and turns (they come along like clockwork every fifteen minutes) are of the kind you don't even bother trying to follow. You just wait for the next confrontation between Dougray Scott and Jeremy Northam, of which Stoppard's (or Harris's) mechanical sleight-of-hand is just a means of providing. A pity he couldn't have found some other means - or moved Northam's character to a different movie altogether, where he wouldn't take time away from Enigma, Winslet's character, etc.

The film - and the script, too, all things considered - is well put together (intelligent writing, excellent acting and photography), so the Claire subplot makes it a real missed opportunity.