Conceiving Ada

The approach this film takes to storytelling is interesting, but somewhat confusing. I've never seen a cross between a science fiction film and a period film set in the Victorian era, so this was a refreshing change of pace; but many aspects of it were not handled well.

The way that a person in the present can communicate with someone in the past isn't outlined very well, although I've only seen this movie once and maybe I need to see it again. Communicating with someone in the past has something to do with something called "DNA memory" which I don't quite understand. I consider myself to be fairly well-informed about the general concepts of computer science but the way that Emmy explained her interfacing with individuals and memories from the past seemed quite cryptic and unintuitive... I don't really mind the fact that this isn't explained well--plenty of unexplained, far-fetched science fiction premises can still yield a viewer's suspension of disbelief--but the contact between present and past seems to be taken in stride rather than as something utterly magnificent. If I suddenly found out how to talk to my favorite historical figure and see his or her memories on a screen, I would be quite a bit more excited than Emmy, her husband, or her strange mentor. This is one of the film's biggest incongruencies, and it destroyed my suspension of disbelief.

Although I do appreciate the fact that the director attempted to integrate the digital technology (the uses of which Ada Byron predicted) into the film, it didn't seem to work that well at all. The backgrounds looked very two-dimensional (partially because no characters ever travelled much within a shot, and very little tracking and panning was done to give the environment a three dimensional feel, though such camera movements must be nearly impossible when the digital environments are two-dimensional to begin with). The fire effect in particular looked incredibly fake as the rest of the digital environment didn't respond properly to the flickering of the flames, so altogether the cinematography in the Victorian era was horrendous and reminded me of something from old CD-ROM adventure games like Phantasmagoria or Gabriel Knight II.

The portrayal of Ada's character was very well-done, however, effectively displaying both Ada's desires and modern ideas as well as her imprisonment by social standards and the people around her. In particular, her final speech near the end of the film is very well done.

One of my complaints about the film, however, is that none of the male characters really seem to be fleshed out at all; they're all very two-dimensional, without too much depth or personality, which really makes the film seem very gender biased.

Although I did enjoy the film overall and I thought the blend of science fiction and period filmmaking was a novel idea, I really think that this could've been a much better experience if the science fiction premise had been dropped entirely and the movie had just been a period film. I actually like science fiction very much and I'm generally not interested in period films dealing with repression and social mores, but Ada's character is particularly interesting because her interests are so modern--they have so much application to today's world and today's ideas.

I think that by adding the sci-fi premise to the film weakened it overall; with the ubiquitousness of the Internet, today's audiences generally know the ways in which computers can be used and this film's hasty, fleeting vision of someone in the present communicating with someone in the past only adds confusion to the film, not a sense of wonder about Ada's conceptions and the potential of virtual reality and artificial intelligence. I rather would've spent more time learning about the different kinds of ideas that Ada had from her point of view. As it is, the film spends so much time divided between the present world and Ada's world that it doesn't really have enough time to fully develop either of them.

From the technical point, this was incredibly amateurish. Cheap computer effect, tasteless colorization of scenes made it sickening. Lighting was arbitrary, often leaving characters in the dark or completely black. Shaky camera movements, use of normal-telephoto lenses/focal lengths in tiny rooms caused an 'in your face' unbearable shots that induced dizziness. Clueless positioning and compositions were baffling and bizarre. No photographer on crew? The DP that insisted on using Panavision gear did not deserve that privilege. Continuity was the least concern here, often mixing computer screen shots with no relation to what the character is actually doing. (loved that holding the mouse in the air and clicking on nothing...) The MIDI (yes...) soundtrack was pathetic. Room tones where way too loud. Directing- All the scenes painfully reminded an acting class session. Weird exchanges, off-mark pompous reactions and unflattering intimate shots.

The editing was bearable but did not help fixing the flawed script. I felt as if I was watching a sequel and missed the whole explanation to the events. Arbitrary locations appear out of context and disappear in a few seconds. I did not gain anything beyond my basic knowledge of Ada. I only felt injustice to her character.

I could go on. The movie was so bad it was depressing. There is nothing like making art look bad to spoil my mood. I ended up renting Antz. Important? No. Honest effort? Yes.

Hey Lynn: Hands off that computer. And no buts! Ya hear me?!

Conceiving Ada is an odd, but ultimately somewhat rewarding film. I had picked it up largely based on the presence of Tilda Swinton, not expecting much from it beyond her performance. I was pleasantly surprised.

The film has a somewhat awkward framing device of a modern computer scientist who discovers a means of communicating with the past. Through the eyes of the modern scientist, we see the life of Ada Lovelace, the world's first computer programmer.

At times, the approach gives a feeling of nothing so much as a PBS or BBC low budget documentary on Lovelace's life, particularly the way in which it is divided up into snippets. Furthermore, the science behind the communication with the past is preposterous, and requires a serious suspension of disbelief. This is not hard science fiction, folks, despite the real world elements. The cameos by Timothy Leary are equally distracting, adding nothing to the plot.

However, both the woman who plays the modern scientist and Tilda Swinton manage to be engaging. The film is definitely worth a look.

Despite some occasionally original touches, like the "virtual sets" that provide the background for the Victorian interiors featuring Ada Lovelace and her circle, this film falls short and ultimately disappoints. Newcomer Francesca Faridany seems talented, but is wasted as Emmy, a character who by mid-film is reduced to nothing more than staring at a monitor watching Lady Ada narrate an autobiography. 'Conceiving Ada' takes off briefly when Lady Ada (Tilda Swinton) appears; the camera lingers on her facial expressions, mannerisms, even making her appear to be translucent or momentarily invisible, apporting into scenes to dramatize Emmy's "virtual" rendering of her.

A straightforward biopic of Ada Lovelace would have been worthwhile, but this film unfortunately makes a hash of both Lady Ada's life, and that of a modern-day computer scientist (and her broadly-drawn, doltish boyfriend).

I'm the sort of person who went down to the local library and read books on Babbage's difference engine whilst my schoolmates were playing football etc.. So, if there is any such thing as a target audience for this film, then I guess I'd probably be included in that.

Maybe I just need to watch it again. A previous reviewer mentioned not to watch this film whilst being tired. Maybe that was my mistake.

I tried my best to enjoy this film, and there are aspects of it that I do like, but overall I found it amateurish and quite plodding.

Being somewhat of a self confessed computer nerd, I just can't help but pick up on the exact time frame when the movie was actually made, and how the employed graphics reflect that time (i.e. 1997). Having played games of the era c.f. "Mind Grind" to cite one example, this film cannot escape that 16-bit colour low res multimedia explosion of that time. Now thankfully this has somewhat lessened in more recent years in the gaming world at least, in favour of actual game play.

Having to resort to watching this movie via a German FTA satellite channel (as I don't think it's ever been aired on UK FTA TV, well not recently anyway), I was mildly amused to see the end credits note Gottdog (God dog) had 4 people working on it's design. Maybe it's mean spirited of me to be amused by this, given that ten years have elapsed since the movie was made, nevertheless the end result makes movie graphics from the eighties look good by comparison.

But, as for the main story, I agree that the format isn't the best idea. Like others I agree that Ada deserves a film without the sci-fi angle, and a more straightforward biographical approach would perhaps be better suited to covering the life story of this remarkable lady.

There are fundamental mistakes that undermine my enjoyment of this movie. First of all the underlying idea that somehow lost real-world information from the past can be accurately reconstructed through some sort of extrapolation via software based intelligent agents, seems somehow ludicrous.

Also, the theme running through the movie that a computing device can indeed predict the mechanics of all things through the course of time (e.g. the winds) is now known not to be the case.

OK, so the Victorians may have held this view, but the 20th century works of Gödel proving that no mathematical system can be complete, Turing's works on the limits of computability, not to mention chaos theory and quantum mechanics, have all completely undermined these ideas, which seem central to how the modern day researcher's software is supposed to work.

Finally, the clicking of the mouse in the air to mean "programming" is also just plain wrong, as previously mentioned.

This film maybe could have been OK, but at least some technical and scientific consultation would have given the film some much needed credit in the believability stakes.

I won't forget the film though, as like "Pi", it is clearly a unique work, but with too many fatal mistakes for me to truly enjoy it, 3/10 from me.