Cloud Atlas

We all like a good thinker every so often. Whether it's a Sixth Sense style "waaaaaaaaaaaah!?" moment or something just plain confusing like Mulholland Drive, quite a good deal of us seem to be drawn to things that make our heads hurt. Sometimes you get a big budgeted confusing film which throws a huge cast of respected players at you, and sometimes that's a terrible thing. Often these are based on successful novels, which is also sometimes a terrible thing. But sometimes it just might work. This is Cloud Atlas.

For those who've read this blog before, you'll know I like to throw together a brief, preferably not spoiler-laden summary of the plot of the film I'm rambling on about. This, however, is somewhat of a challenge for Cloud Atlas, as it is in fact six stories which weave together to build one overall theme. That theme is more or less that a good deed against intolerance can have an effect on the lives, and therefore troubled situations faced by others for years to come. So here's my briefest of briefs on each of the stories: a 19th century American lawyer travelling by ship to San Francisco to conclude a slavery contract, encountering a slave on the way; a 1930s English bisexual musician takes on work as an amanuensis to a famous composer, privately working on his own masterpiece, "The Cloud Atlas Sextet"; a 1970s American journalist looks to follow in her father's footsteps, trying to uncover a conspiracy involving a nuclear reactor, in a plot for oil company success; a present-day English publisher is made an unwilling resident of a retirement home by his brother in his attempts to escape the angry cohorts of an imprisoned former client; a 22nd century Korean clone is freed from her slave-like job by a Union rebel, in an effort to expose the horrors of fabricant life; a distant future tribesman reluctantly helps a technologically advanced Prescient to climb a mountain in order to activate a signal to all human life which has fled Earth. Confused enough? Good. Because I'm simply not going to explain it much more. Each of the stories are heavily, yet not blatantly linked to the others, ranging from pieces of music, to characters actually appearing in multiple stories. If I go into more detail, not only will a tie myself into a gigantic, confused mess, muttering about sci-fi colliding with old people's homes and cannibals, but, more importantly, I'll start giving things away.

The cast is fairly notable, and, once more, confusing. There are seven main actors in the film, and (with only a couple of exceptions), they all feature as a character in each of the stories, and each is the lead in one of them. Tom Hanks is particularly pleasing in a truly Tom Hanks kind of way, whether it's his morally troubled Zachry of the far future, or the suspicious Dr Henry Goose travelling with the lawyer to San Francisco, he revels in the opportunity to play to many different characters, and it's no shock that he truly is one of the stars of the film. If nothing else, seeing him as an expletive-happy Irish gangster is something worth watching alone. Halle Berry is less notable throughout each, but she gives a very strong performance as the lead as 70s journalist Luisa Rey, at the very least a step towards making us forget Catwoman once more. Ben Whishaw gives a very impressive showing as Robert Frobisher, the musician seeking a chance for fame, battling to keep his bisexuality hidden at a time where it was more than unacceptable to be so in public. My pick of the bunch, is the magnificent Jim Broadbent, who takes the lead as publisher Timothy Cavendish. His story largely provides heart-warming comic relief, lampooning The Great Escape and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest as Cavendish makes a bid for freedom from the retirement home he has been made resident of. It is this story, for me, which somehow makes the whole movie tick, despite the fact that it is almost certainly the least important one to the overall climax of the film. Notable mentions must also go to Hugo Weaving and Jim Sturgess, who also provide pivotal characters in most of the stories, and also to Hugh Grant, whose slimy nuclear reactor manager is definitely loathsome, as well as his fantastically unexpected turn as the leader of a tribe of cannibals. Bizarre.

Despite as unfathomably confusing as the plot no doubt sounds from that fumbled attempt at a description, it flows very nicely together. This is more impressive than it seems, given that the narrative jumps from any one of six time periods at moments which can seem almost random at first, but always, always prove to be more pivotal to the plot than it first appears. It's a confusing yet wonderful story, and intricate in the detail to boot.

Visually speaking, the film's even more pleasing. It's a big budgeted science fiction film, and so you expect the use of special effects to be of the top order, and the scenes of New Seoul in particular are phenomenal. However, it is more an attention to the feel of the film through the use of (what I have assumed is) deliberately sketchy altering of the faces of the actors to fit with each of the stories. For example, there's not a single moment in the New Seoul story where we believe that Jim Sturgess is a Korean man, and not in fact, Jim Sturgess in peculiar make up. But this definitely adds to the charm of the movie, giving a more old-fashioned feel to an otherwise highly advanced use of cinema technology. I mean, I can't emphasise enough how much I enjoyed seeing Tom Hanks dressed up to look like a hardened Irish gangster. I...I just can't.

4/5  - Certainly not a perfect film, but extremely enjoyable and oddly touching. Guilty of trying too hard to hammer the message of "TOLERANCE IS AMAZING, RIGHT!?" home, but that's usually not too much of a glaring issue. Definitely worth watching.