2012: The Year in Film: "Cloud Atlas" Review

My original goal was to finish the novel before seeing this film, but I unfortunately failed at said goal, as I fail at many goals, including but not limited to "reviewing movies within a reasonable time frame of seeing said movies". Sigh.  So I caught this one a few weeks back, and to be quite honest, my procrastination in bringing you this review has less to do with "being lazy" and more to do with "processing what the hell this movie is".  The acclaimed novel by David Mitchell was said to be un-film-able, as it features 6 distinct storylines only tangentially related and separated by time, space, characters, genre, style and language.  The sections span from the 1840s to the distant future and are only minimally related to each other.  For example, in one section a character is reading a diary/travel journal published by a character in an earlier section.  With this format, I was honestly more curious than anything else to how this movie could actually be executed.

In step the Wachowski Brothers, best known for creating the Matrix films and German director Tom Tykwer, probably best known for "Run Lola Run", to write and direct this adaptation.  This film has been a passion project of sorts for this crew, who managed to finance this flick outside of the studio system and make the most expensive independently financed film in the history of movies.  This film makes a lot of pretty daring and risky moves.  First, rather than keep the sections of the story separate and arranged by time and place, the film smashes the sections into short segments, jumping from one time and group of characters to another without much of what seems like rhyme or reason.  Second, they use the same actors to depict different characters in each different story, irregardless of ethnicity or gender.  Which can get confusing.  



Ultimately, this is a film that succeeds a lot more than it really has any business doing.  It's a honker at 2 hrs 45 minutes, and often confusingly and inexplicably shifts setting and tone abruptly.  Some settings and characters are significantly more effective than others, but the story in each of the sections develops somewhat simultaneously, building towards an emotionally effective and soaring crescendo of an ending.  Visually, this is an impressive film.  It looks amazing, and each section effectively differentiates itself from the others through color and cinematography.  Despite being 6 short films smashed together into one large film, there IS an overreaching narrative that really comes through in the last act. 

The acting is strong.  Tom Hanks, especially, shows everyone why he's such a highly regarded actor, as he hasn't given us much reminder of that as of late.  Jim Broadbent and Jim Sturgess are other highlights among the cast.  Some characters are more interesting and compelling than others, but considering what the cast was tasked with doing, the fact that this film makes ANY sense at all is a testament to the talent of everyone involved.  The directing is strong.  Each section retains a distinct feel despite being rather randomly (at times) smashed together with the others. 

This is a flick that's often confusing and will have you checking your watch more than once as you try and figure out exactly where the hell we are going with this.  The visuals, insane editing, strong directing and strong performances make it worth watching, but the first two hours of the film can be frustrating.  However, the last half hour of this flick is straight up great.  It's as good as anything else I've seen in the movies this year, and alone makes this flick one worth watching.  The conclusion is emotionally soaring and downright heart-rending as the story and theme all comes crashing down throughout the separate narratives.  This film isn't quite as good or deep as it would like to be, but it's ultimately a rewarding, powerful and worthwhile film experience.  Well worth a watch, if downright bizarre. 

8/10.