Conceiving Ada . Austin Chronicle . 03-30-98

Conceiving Ada

DIRECTED BY: Lynn Hershman Leeson

REVIEWED: 03-30-98

There are so many movies that use parallel lives as devices to explore the past-present continuum that it's upsetting when one like Conceiving Ada, which boasts the incendiary intelligence of British actress Tilda Swinton as Byron's daughter Lady Ada Byron Lovelace, doesn't do more than set up the fact that there are similarities in the lives of two women, Emmy, a present-day MIT computer genius, and Ada, a 19th-century mathematical genius. Emmy uses her computer to actually enter Ada's life; by entering an idea like "conception" or a specific date, Emmy makes it possible for that moment to unravel like a movie clip on her computer screen. When she wants to go a step further and communicate with Ada, her boyfriend, the father of their unborn child, becomes frustrated with Emmy's tireless vision and lack of attention to her pregnancy, which upon doctor's orders necessitates rest. The two lives are not seamlessly dovetailed, which makes for a fragmented narrative in which we learn not enough about Ada and spend too much time with Emmy. Her breakthrough in devising computerized time travel and her subsequent ability to speak with her idol - to tell Ada that she thinks she can help her out of her miserable, dying existence - are high points in the film.

--Claiborne Smith

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Conceiving Ada

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