Uf, maybe I was the only one disappointed. An incredibly simplistic, scattered story. What frustrated me the most was that, at first glance (and in all of it's promotion) it's a movie about the Enigma codebreakers. Look a little deeper, however, and it's a movie with three simultaneous plotlines. Here they are, in order of importance:
1. Frustrated lover, in anguish over a lost girl who has disappeared.
2. WWII mystery story: what sort of intrigue and double-crossing might have happened? Who was spying on who? Where do you draw the lines of loyalty and duty?
3. Oh yes, and superficial details about the Enigma machine, used as an excuse to draw the hero and Kate Winslett together onto a bench in a dilapidated barn.
Maybe I was naive thinking I was going to see a movie ABOUT Enigma, or at least the people involved in it, or at LEAST the nightmare of round-the-clock code-breaking. Instead, the film could have taken place anytime or anywhere in WWII Britain, and the Enigma was only a plot device to get the romance and mystery started. The only time it REALLY means anything is during the "greatest convoy battle of all time," which is 100% tangential but -- for me -- the movie's one redeeming moment. This movie could have just as well been about industrial espionage on a dairy farm in WWII Britain, and the essential parts of the plot would have been exactly the same.
If you're like me, and you've long been fascinated with Enigma, expect very little. If you like a good mystery, you might still want to expect very little (90 minutes of sparse details, and then 10 minutes of rapid-fire revelations and epiphanies that the audience -- or at least me -- didn't have a hope in hell of ever deducing). If you love the 50's fashions, though, and you think Winslett is pretty cool, then it's probably worth seeing.
1. Frustrated lover, in anguish over a lost girl who has disappeared.
2. WWII mystery story: what sort of intrigue and double-crossing might have happened? Who was spying on who? Where do you draw the lines of loyalty and duty?
3. Oh yes, and superficial details about the Enigma machine, used as an excuse to draw the hero and Kate Winslett together onto a bench in a dilapidated barn.
Maybe I was naive thinking I was going to see a movie ABOUT Enigma, or at least the people involved in it, or at LEAST the nightmare of round-the-clock code-breaking. Instead, the film could have taken place anytime or anywhere in WWII Britain, and the Enigma was only a plot device to get the romance and mystery started. The only time it REALLY means anything is during the "greatest convoy battle of all time," which is 100% tangential but -- for me -- the movie's one redeeming moment. This movie could have just as well been about industrial espionage on a dairy farm in WWII Britain, and the essential parts of the plot would have been exactly the same.
If you're like me, and you've long been fascinated with Enigma, expect very little. If you like a good mystery, you might still want to expect very little (90 minutes of sparse details, and then 10 minutes of rapid-fire revelations and epiphanies that the audience -- or at least me -- didn't have a hope in hell of ever deducing). If you love the 50's fashions, though, and you think Winslett is pretty cool, then it's probably worth seeing.
