Enigma (2001)

Enigma is a 2001 Espionage thriller film directed by Michael Apted from a screenplay by Tom Stoppard. The script was adapted from the novel Enigma by Robert Harris, about the Enigma codebreakers of Bletchley Park in the Second World War. This was the final film to be scored by John Barry.

In 1943 amid the largest convoy deployment from the US to Britain, cryptanalyst Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott) returns to Bletchley Park to help the codebreaking team reacquire their ability to read U-Boats' Enigma communications. Obsessed with his missing former girlfriend Claire (Saffron Burrows), he and Claire's roommate Hester (Kate Winslet), also employed at Bletchley, work on unraveling the mystery of Claire's disappearance. Although the story is highly fictionalised, the process of encrypting German messages during World War II and decrypting them with the Enigma is discussed in detail, and the historical event of the Katyn massacre is highlighted.

The film was co-produced by Mick Jagger, who provided funding for the film, as well as access to his own Enigma machine. It was shot in England, Scotland and the Netherlands. Critical reviews were largely positive, although there was criticism of the largely fictional storyline which does not mention the real codebreaker Alan Turing, and does not give due credit to the Polish cryptanalysis foundation Cipher Bureau.

Synopsis

The story, loosely based on actual events, takes place in March 1943, when the Second World War was at its height. The cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, have a problem: the Nazi U-boats have changed one of their code reference books used for Enigma machine ciphers, leading to a blackout in the flow of vital naval signals intelligence. The British cryptanalysts have cracked the "Shark" cipher once before, and they need to do it again in order to keep track of U-boat locations.

Actors