MovieChat Forums > Enigma (2002) Discussion > Why did Claire freekout when Tom took hi...

Why did Claire freekout when Tom took his notes back?


Ok, I can understand why she was poking around in his personal items, after all, she was a spy of sorts. But after Tom tells her why she can't keep the notes on his special "machine", she goes from playfully playing with him over it to fighting with her life to hang on it it... And then she just locks up once she can't have them. Didn't make sense unless she wanted to use them to trade for something. Maybe she planned on giving them to "Puck", as he would have wanted to give them to the Germans? I've seen 3 different versions of this film, cut for different television, and I know that some scenes have been cut, although I do have what appears to be a full uncut version (complete bedroom scene), but maybe I'm just missing something obvious.
Thanks!

D.

reply

From what I can make out she didn't "know" Puck at that point. I have no suggestions as to why she was so deparate to keep thse notes.

By the way what more was there of the bedroom scene? The film was on TV at the weekend and the sex scene was very short, but I don't think it wanted to be any longer. It was enough to show their relationship.

reply

There wasn't that much more to the scene, maybe a little bit of skin and
some more moan's and other noises..
I'm still wracking my brains over that scene though as to why she
just had to have something like his notes regarding the theoretical
machine. I think she may have been involved with Puck at that point.
During one of Tom's flashback's, he was arguing with her at the bridge,
asking "Are you seeing someone else?!!", and Claire reply's "I'm always
seeing someone else..". And another flashback of a continuation of the
argument, Tom is telling Claire that he'll tell her about Shark,
"anything she wants". so this would have appeared to have happened very
soon after the incident in the bedroom, which would perhaps mean that Claire
had "moved on" to Puck prior to Tom's breakdown. Anyway, this still makes no
sense as to why Claire was so desperate to have some secrets of her own, maybe
she wanted to use them as a way to get out from under Wigram. I don't think there
was anything there that Puck would have wanted as he already had all the secrets
himself, and he could provide all that info to the Germans on his own. All very
confusing to an otherwise great film!!

D.

reply

I think it was her first failure. Her job was to get info for Wigram. Either she didn't know relevant mathematics from irrelevant mathematics (likely), or she just was starting small to get him used to her 'ways'. Anyway, unlike her other marks, he wouldn't let her 'cute' it out of him. (She probably had no conception of what other passions a man like him could feel.)

Hester hinted that Claire saw Tom as slightly different from her other conquests. One reason is that her cuteness failed with him. The other reason is that she nevertheless suceeded in conquering him in a way she wasn't used to.

reply

Interesting theories so far, each as likely as the next. However, my take on Claire's intense attempt to steal Tom's papers tends to come from a rather different perspective.

As well as being common knowledge, it was also hinted throughout the film that women were not as respected as men in regards to intellectual ability, certainly not in the 40's. As in the case of Hester, she was given a lower status than two other men, despite proving she was more capable than either of them (i.e. winning the crossword contest).
Claire's accusation of Tom reflects this, as she gets offended by his continuing secrecy and suspects he thinks of her as being "too dumb" to understand his work.

Coupled with Claire's feelings of intellectual inadequacy was her possible guilt at having to court other men in order to gain valuable information. Although she showed little or no remorse for her actions in other parts of the film (suggesting she was comfortable in her role as a traitor), Hester alluded towards the genuity of Claire's feelings for Tom (as mentioned by other posters), and therefore broke down when her efforts to gather the information from Tom in her usual manner failed--meaning it had all been for nothing. It was also possible that she felt that she should no longer have to even trick her suiters into giving her information, that she deserved to be included in the secret network for sheer intellectual merit.

I've probably gone right off tangent with these theories, so here's a very simple one: Claire was scared with the force at which Tom retrived his letters from her hands. Ouch.


~Letting people down since 1988~

reply

I've been thinking over another theory, even a bit more out there, and not very
well supported because I haven't read the book where I think Clair's character
is "fleshed out" (no pun intended) a bit better.
From what I have read in other topics, I think Claire had been a prostitute,
and if that's not correct, than this theory is really crap. But lets say she
was.... If you were to think of this in terms of a "working girl" having done
her trick, and then taking her money from the john's wallet, what would her
reaction have been if the john forcefully took his money back from her, probably
pretty much how Claire reacted. So, in this case, Claire has done her "trick"
for Wigram, but she can't take money, so she decides to take something of high
value from Tom, and she's smart enough to know from his reactions that she's
got something of great value to him. So, when he forcefully takes it back, maybe
the reaction is on two levels, one, she's upset because she's not being allowed
some "intellectual" reward, and two, she's not being allowed to keep her
"payment" for her services to Wigram/Tom... So, how's THAT for an obscure
bit of reasoning?!! Ok, dig in, I'm really up for some critical thinking on
this one, I hope that I've really missed something about Claire's character
that might be explained from the book, that has a much better explanation for
her reaction..

D.

reply

I think it was Claire acting childish, you know, she always got her way and being beautiful gave her even more chance to be completely self-absorbed and self-centred. She was teasing Tom, treated the effort to get it back as a wilful game and didn't like being physically forced to give it up.

An immature person to whom Tom said no.

She took it badly.

Unfortunately, she met her match with Puck, who played her well and had her running after him. When he considered her a threat to his spying activities "Pop !"


You wanna f * * k with me? Okay. Say hello to my little friend! (Tony Montana)

reply

I think she used this opportunity to break up with him. She saw that he was not the spy she was looking for, and she had no further interest in him. She knew she had to "move on" and had to sever ties with him. She looks at him in a quite calculating manner while throwing her little trantrum. And then she has a perfect reason to keep him out of her life.

reply

I think she used this opportunity to break up with him. She saw that he was not the spy she was looking for, and she had no further interest in him. She knew she had to "move on" and had to sever ties with him. She looks at him in a quite calculating manner while throwing her little trantrum. And then she has a perfect reason to keep him out of her life.

I had the same impression as lilale777. I would have written just the same.

She had discovered that Tom wouldn't be of much use to her and she needed a pretext to break with him. Tom insisting on been given back his paper delivered this pretext. She could act the mistrusted lady. She painted him as not trusting her with anything important to him just to make him feel guilty.

--- each brain develops its own preferences ---

reply

I think in that instant Claire had a brief moment of self-loathing. Her job wasn't at that point to found out if Tom was a spy, but more to test hime and see if shecould she "break" him and cause a security breach. Tom held firm and wouldn't share confidential information. She probably thought "Why the hell am I doing this anyway?" She probably also wasn't used to any man saying no to her.

reply

My take was, I think, pretty basic: Claire was just being playful and when Tom demanded his papers back; she at first thought he was joking, but when he shouted and wrenched them back from her, her feelings were badly hurt. It's awful to be harshly treated by someone who matters a lot, especially when you thought it was okay to be cute. Claire had previously claimed something else of Tom's for her scrapbook, and probably had no idea anything was wrong.

His behaviour shocked her.

It would naturally cause her to freeze him out and dump him, to avoid further humiliation.
As Hester had pointed out, Claire had felt a bit differently toward Tom, so perhaps she was more vulnerable.

reply

She took it because Wigram told her to take anything that looked important.

From the looks of it, the paper was about some computing ideas Tom had that he didn't share with the Bletchley crowd. Claire wasn't stupid, she had an inkling that it was or could be very important to the war effort. So she took it and tried to play it off as a joke. It didn't work and she knew in the future Tom would be very guarded and suspicious of her. That was why she broke it off. Plus she liked him (according to Hester) and she wanted to try to protect him just a bit from Wigram's prying.

reply