Cloud Atlas Review

                    
                              

There is no doubt that Cloud Atlas is quite possibly the most ambitious movie made in the last decade.  It takes more than ambition, however, to make a film that can match up with the size and scope necessary to make this truly memorable. 

Based on the 2004 novel of the same name by David Mitchell, the film contains six separate stories, spanning across six different time periods that are all connected to each other.  The six stories are as follows: an American lawyer named Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess), who while journeying the Pacific Islands in 1849, tries to help a runaway slave while suffering from a mysterious illness; aspiring musician Robert Frobisher (Ben Whishaw) works as an assistant to the world renowned composer Vyvyan Ayrs (Jim Broadbent) in 1936 Europe;  gossip columnist Luisa Rey (Halle Berry) investigates a dangerous conspiracy at a nuclear power plant in 1973 San Francisco; opportunistic publisher Timothy Cavendish finds himself trapped in the nursing home from hell in present day England; Sonmi~451 (Doona Bae), a genetically engineered clone, tells the story of her escape from a life of servitude in the dictatorial society of 2144 Neo Seoul; and primitive tribesman Zachry’s (Tom Hanks) life threatening and life-altering journey with the enigmatic Meronym in a post-apocalyptic society (dated “106 Winters after The Fall” but listed in the credits as the year 2321).

As you may already be aware, the leading actors play several different characters throughout the six stories in an additional effort to link the tales to each other.  For example, throughout the movie Tom Hanks plays a mysterious doctor, a hotel manager, a scientist, a hot-headed gangster, an actor, and a primitive tribesman.  The rest of the principal cast all have a similar set of roles to fill that vary in size and quality.  While this is certainly a fascinating concept in theory, it might also very well be the movie’s biggest problem.  The Wachowski’s seem to be so focused on having their actors involved in as many of the stories as possible that several of the roles are dreadfully miscast.  Perhaps the most glaring example is during the Sonmi~451 story in which the British Jim Sturgess plays the rebellion commander Hae-Joo Chang.  There are also certain points where Halle Berry plays a Jewish woman, Doona Bae a white woman, and Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving and Hugh Grant all trying to pass as Asians (the only reason they’re not as noticeable as Sturgess is because their parts in this particular story are much smaller).  At some point it also seems that the make-up artists ran out of ideas to help the audience distinguish the actor’s individual roles and as a result some of them can get quite embarrassing with them often going into default mode and simply giving them large prosthetic noses and presumably calling it a day.

While some liberties have naturally been taken with the source material, there is one difference in particular that’s pretty hard to ignore.  In the book, the way Mitchell would tell each of the stories is that you would read about halfway through each narrative before it’s interrupted by a cliffhanger and you would move on and start the next one.  The cycle continues until you get to the last story which, unlike the rest of them goes from beginning to end uninterrupted.  You would then continue to where you left off on the previous story and when you conclude with that tale, you finish off the story you were reading before until you make your way back to where you started.  In the movie however, the Wachowskis have instead opted to spend no more than five minutes of screen time at a time on each story before abruptly cutting away to the next one.  The problem with this is (at least for me anyway), is that with so little time spent on each narrative it becomes difficult to get emotionally invested in any of them and I suspect that if I hadn’t already read the book beforehand I would’ve had an even harder time keeping up with what’s going on.  After about the first hour, I eventually got used to it but I still found myself preferring the book. 

While the Wachowskis make a valiant effort, the finished product is just slightly off the mark.  However, it’s not without its truly beautiful moments (such as Jim Sturgess performance as Adam Ewing and Tom Hanks’ role as Zachry being some of the best work he has done in years) that prove it’s worth watching and reading at least once.  I get the feeling this will be one of those films that I’ll need to watch at least a couple of more times to truly appreciate but the first time has not been too bad either.

Grade: B-