Enigma
In The Arms of the Angels
Spend all your time waiting
for that second chance
for a break that would make it okay
It’s not especially clear in Enigma how long Tom Jericho has been waiting for his second chance, or whether he even wants it. Jericho (Dougray Scott) is a Cambridge mathematician who has been busily working away at German cipher traffic since the first days of World War Two. This led, directly or indirectly, to a breakdown that sent him away to rest for awhile. We see him first on a train, returning to Bletchley Park, the top-secret code breaking installation, home of the Enigma codebreaking machine. He has a haunted look in his eyes, he hasn’t shaved for a week, and he doesn’t look one bit happy to be back.
there’s always one reason
to feel not good enough
and it’s hard at the end of the day
There’s no particular reason for him to feel good about being back, either, as Bletchley Park is going through a hard spell. Jericho’s great achievement was the cracking of the German U-boat code known as “Shark”, which allowed destroyers to pinpoint the location of enemy submarines so as to allow convoys from the United States to escape destruction. Unfortunately, the Germans have changed their codes, and there is no easy way of getting them back. The situation is desperate, and will get even more so - unless Jericho and a collection of dweebs, com-symps, and misfit mathematicians can break the new code.
I need some distraction
oh beautiful release
memory seeps through my veins
Fortunately, Enigma is not really about the changing fortunes of the codebreakers; although theirs is a great and important story - kept secret for over fifty years - it is more suited to the History Channel than the big screen. (Or a PBS “Nova” episode.) It’s not even about how Tom Jericho breaks the “Shark” code, although that plays a big part in the movie. It’s really about a memory, and how that memory drives Jericho to distraction. It’s the memory of Claire Romilly (Saffron Burrows), blonde temptress, who Jericho loved and lost, and who contributed to his mental breakdown. Jericho sees her everywhere in rose-colored flashbacks, and even goes so far as to break into her flat for a smell of her perfume. Unfortunately, he finds something else, that may or may not be a clue to her disappearance.
let me be empty
oh and weightless and maybe
I’ll find some peace tonight
Enigma takes place in the peaceful English countryside, on the grounds of a manor house replete with swans and orchestras, but it is a vital battlefield. Jericho is working towards peace by ending the war with his ciphers, but cannot find peace within himself. One of the few mysteries left in Enigma is what Jericho’s true motivation is. Is he committed to the war effort, or does that matter? Is he still in love with Claire, or has he accepted the fact of his rejection? More importantly, is the solution to the puzzles around him that weighs most cruelly on his mind? Scott turns in an outstanding performance as the wounded Jericho, showing us the character’s injuries but never letting us into the sealed-off chambers of his heart.
so tired of the straight line
and everywhere you turn
there’s vultures and thieves at your back
The primary vulture here is Wigram (Jeremy Northam), on His Majesty’s Secret Service, in charge of security for Bletchley Park. He has the Ed Harris role from A Beautiful Mind, the shadowy intelligence officer with a secret mission. Northam almost steals the movie as a British version of Alec Baldwin in a snappy fedora, always turning up at inconvenient times with inconvenient questions, all the better to stick the needle in poor Tom Jericho. It’s a fun part, and Northam (who did steal a big part of the woeful Gosford Park) has a fun, stylish time with it. He’s the most colorful thing about this grey, shadowy movie.
and the storm keeps on twisting
you keep building the lies
that you make up for all that you lack
If Jericho is going to escape the storm and work his way out of the various lies he tells Wigram (none of them very effectual), it helps to have someone in his life that is a little more stable and sensible, that makes up for his lack of these characteristics himself. He is fortunate to run into Hester (Kate Winslet), the former roommate of his dear departed Claire, and a fellow puzzle-solver. Winslet is magnificent in her small role here as a fiercely proto-feminist file clerk and the nascent love interest. A.O. Scott at the New York Times calls this her “Hermione Granger act”, which is true, but, durn it, I like Hermione Granger, and I don’t care who knows it. It’s not a colorful part (Winslet spends a lot of the movie in drab brown dresses) but there’s some really good acting here, maybe enough for the Academy to sit up and take notice again.
it don’t make no difference
escaping one last time
it’s easier to believe
The question about Enigma is whether or not it makes a difference. In fact, that’s a question asked by an impossibly sweet and efficient blonde servicewoman, spending her days listening to Morse code transmissions from the enemy which she is utterly unable to decipher. She asks whether what she is doing matters, and Jericho tells her that yes, it does, although he doesn’t seem terribly convinced by it himself. That same ambiguity is present in the movie. It’s a smart, well directed, well scripted movie, but it really doesn’t take much pleasure or interest in solving its puzzles. (And all the puzzles are solved, mind you, Enigma isn’t very Enigmatic at all.) It’s easy to believe in the movie as a piece of art, less easy to believe in its neat, pat conclusions.
in this sweet madness
oh this glorious sadness
that brings me to my knees
And then maybe here is the solution to Enigma; it’s a sweet, sad movie, but not nearly glorious enough to bring one to his knees. It is quite a nice little film, about an interesting episode in history, very well done, with some really good performances. But there are not many scenes that have a real emotional impact, and almost all of them are in flashbacks at the beginning of the movie dealing with Jericho’s failed relationship with Claire. Enigma is a perfectly fine piece of moviemaking, but it doesn’t pack the necessary emotional force needed to be truly glorious. Blame it on the stiff-upper-lip Brits, but there is precious little sweet madness or glorious sadness to recommend the movie on any other grounds. It certainly doesn’t have the lyrical punch of a Sara McLachlan lyric:
in the arms of the angel
fly away from here
from this dark cold hotel room
and the endlessness that you fear
you were pulled from the wreckage
of your silent reverie
you’re in the arms of the angel
may you find some comfort here