Enigma

Michael Apted’s solid film about how the Brits cracked the “Enigma” code which the German High Command used to orchestrate their submarine operations in the North Atlantic should appeal to WWII buffs, particularly those with an interest in the unglamorous and unthrilling world of code-breaking. It’s serious-mindedness however will present difficulties to the uninformed viewer (myself being one such) as the world of cryptology is, not surprisingly, somewhere between opaque and incomprehensible to your average Joe and difficult to give a cinematic treatment which means, at least in this case that a lot of effort has gone into getting the look right. This would have been less of an issue for the novel by Robert Harris from which it was adapted by Tom Stoppard but locked into the relentless forward motion of film Enigma is like watching a train carrying your loved one into the distance.

Dougray Scott plays Tom Jericho, a brilliant mathematician who had been sent home to Cambridge from Bletchley Park, the rural home of the British code breaking efforts, after a nervous breakdown as a result of being dumped by Claire Romilly (Saffron Burrows), a beautiful colleague. He has been recalled because he represents the only remaining chance to break the notoriously unbreakable code in time to protect a large convoy of warships bringing aid-in-kind from the U.S. Claire has mysteriously disappeared and Tom and Claire's former roommate, Hester Wallace (Kate Winslet), team up to work out what has become of her. Meanwhile a spycatcher, Wigram (Jeremy Northam) keeps close watch on Tom.

The brief romance between Tom and Claire is a relatively small component of the film, showing up mainly in Tom’s love-lorn reveries. More actual screen-time is given over to Tom’s platonic relations with Hester. A nearly unrecognisable Winslet is, pale and plump with her drably sensible attire, her NHS spectacles, and can-do pluck the epitome of the war-time woman. Indeed most of the code-breaking inner circle and their WAAF support could have been lifted straight out of Powell and Pressburger.

Scott, who spends most of the time moping around with a wounded, hang-dog expression is rather too phlegmatic in the lead and the action scenes in the later part of the film come across as add-ons to mitigate the overall glumness that is only relieved by Jeremy Northam who contributes a bit of much-needed dash to proceedings.

A secondary plot thread involves the infamous Katyn massacre by the Russians who were by this time allied with the British who thus wanted to suppress public knowledge of it. Unfortunately it receives but scant attention in Apted’s film.

FYI: I haven’t read Harris’s novel so don’t know how much of the film is fictional but I assume that the Jericho character is based on the real life Alan Turing, the so-called Father of Computing, although he was homosexual, tragically driven to suicide by the hounding of the Establishment. For a more accurate account of the history of Bletchley Park see The Imitation Game (2014).

 

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