Enigma (From Stroud News and Journal)

Enigma

ENIGMA (15)

IT IS great to see a British-made film about the Enigma code breakers.

Mick Jagger's company Jagged Films has given us Enigma as their maiden production.

Jagger is obviously very interested in war operations involving decoding. He owns an original four-rotor Enigma encoding machine, which he loaned to the film for historical accuracy.

This deceptive machine, not unlike a typewriter, encoded communications between German U-boats. Once the British had got their hands on one they were able to crack the cipher.

It's England in 1943. Having just had a mental breakdown, emotionally disturbed cryptanalyst Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott) is recalled to duty at Bletchley Park, the centre of Britain's secret code-breaking headquarters.

Jericho had been dismissed a month before for general insubordination. The straw that broke the camel's back was his affair with his promiscuous colleague, the beautiful Claire (Saffron Burrows).

Nervy Jericho couldn't accept the liaison was over and it sent him over the edge. However, renowned as a genius in his field, he is needed to decipher a crucial message.

The Germans have discovered their codes have been intercepted and so have rewritten them. Nazi U-boats are poised to attack an important convoy in the Atlantic en-route from America, so Jericho is in a race against time.

But he is also faced with another problem. Claire has disappeared.

Chumming up with frumpy Hester Wallace (Kate Winslet), the girl who shared Claire's cottage, they discover a complicated network of conspiracy, and a mutual affinity.

With the screenplay by playwright Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love, 1998) this is, not surprisingly, a very wordy production. However Robert Harriss novel is skilfully handled, historically interesting, and has an old-fashioned movie feel about it.

British director Michael Apted (The World in Not Enough, 1999) has done his best to capture our attention but I fear Enigma may only appeal to the already converted.

The acting is top notch. Jeremy Northam (The Winslow Boy,1998) is excellent as a smooth talking secret service agent and Dougray Scott (M:1-2, 2000) shows he needed the right part to distinguish himself.

Pregnant at the time, Kate Winslet was as usual the total professional. Filming must have been exhausting for her, as they had to squeeze Hester's scenes into the first few weeks, before she started expanding.

Winslet did her research methodically visiting the museum at Bletchley Park, which was the code-breaking base during the Second World War, and even chatting to real life code-breaker Mavis Batey, aged 78, for advice on perfecting her boffin character.

I think it's fair to say that the deceptions and intrigues of Enigma require total concentration so might not engage fast action buffs. However, it is an excellent period piece, not unlike in style Hitchcocks (Secret Agent 1936).

I was somewhat baffled by the action-packed ending, at odds with the rest of Enigma's moody feel, but overall this is a stylish and interesting film.

If Enigma is anything to go by Jagged Films is a name to watch out for. Oh, and look out for Mick Jagger in a Hitchcock-like cameo, but don't blink.

7/10