Taglines: Unlock the secret.
Enigma movie storyline. During the heart of World War II, in March of 1943, cryptoanalysts at Britain’s code-breaking center have discovered to their horror that Nazi U-boats have changed their Enigma Code. Authorities enlist the help of a brilliant young man named Tom Jericho to help them break the code again. The possibility of a spy within the British code-breakers’ ranks looms and Tom’s love, Claire, has disappeared. To solve the mysteries, Tom recruits Claire’s best friend, Hester Wallace. In investigating Claire’s personal life, the pair discovers personal and international betrayals.
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. 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. It was the last film scored by John Barry.
The film and, by association, the book have attracted criticism for their portrayal of the Polish role in Enigma decryption. The historian Norman Davies argues that in the film the fictitious traitor turns out to be Polish, but only slight mention is made of the contributions of prewar Polish Cipher Bureau cryptologists to Allied Enigma decryption efforts,[9] but historically, the only known traitor active at Bletchley Park was British spy John Cairncross, who passed crucial secrets to the Soviet Union.
About the Story
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.
The film begins with Tom Jericho returning to Bletchley after a month recovering from a nervous breakdown brought on by his failed love affair with a coworker named Claire Romilly. Jericho immediately seeks to see her again and finds that she mysteriously disappeared a few days earlier. He enlists the help of Claire’s housemate, Hester Wallace, to follow the trail of clues and learn what has happened to Claire.
Mr. Jericho and Miss Wallace, as they formally address each other, work to decipher intercepts stolen by Claire and determine why she took them. Jericho is closely watched by an MI5 agent, Wigram (Jeremy Northam), who plays cat and mouse with him throughout the film. Meanwhile, U-boats are closing in on a convoy of thirty seven ships from America, giving the code-breakers less than four days to find a solution to reading the changed Shark cipher.
Enigma (2002)
Directed by: Michael Apted
Starring: Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet, Jeremy Northam , Saffron Burrows, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Tom Hollander, Corin Redgrave, Donald Sumpter, Matthew Macfadyen
Screenplay by: Robert Harris, Tom Stoppard
Cinematography by: John Beard
Costume Design by: Shirley Russell
Set decoration by: Eliza Solesbury
Art Direction by: Rod McLean, Stuart Rose
Mekaup Department: Anita Burger, John Henry Gordon
Music by: John Barry
Distributed by: Manhattan Pictures
Release Date: April 19, 2002
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