Disentangling "Cloud Atlas"

"Cloud Atlas," the ambitious new film directed by Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer, tells six very different stories in different genres, settings, and time periods that are connected to each other. Some share characters. Several are linked by one character in one story reading or watching parts of another, which influences their actions. They all share the same ensemble of actors, who play different parts in each piece. The stories can be broken down as follows:

1. In 1849, a young notary named Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess), helps an escaped slave Autua (David Gyasi), who has stowed away on the ship bringing Adam from the South Pacific home to San Francisco.

2. In 1936, a young composer, Robert Frobisher (Ben Whishaw), writes letters to his lover Rufus Sixsmith (James D'Arcy), about his employment with an older composer, Vyvyan Ayrs (Jim Broadbent).

3. In 1973, reporter Luisa Rey (Halle Berry) tries to uncover the truth about a newly opening nuclear power plant while being pursued by hit man Bill Smoke (Hugo Weaving).

4. In 2012, elderly publisher Timothy Cavendish (Jim Broadbent), is tricked into confinement at a nursing home by his brother Denholme (Hugh Grant), and joins forces with the other patients to escape.

5. In 2144, Sonmi 451 (Doona Bae), is a slave-like clone called a Fabricant, who is liberated from her servitude by a freedom fighter named Hae-Joo Chang (Jim Sturgess).

6. Finally, in 2312, in a post-apocalyptic era, Zachry (Tom Hanks), from the tribal Valleymen, meets Meronym (Halle Berry) , who comes from a more technologically advanced people, and is trying to contact the lost human colonies in space.

To summarize, we have a historical adventure, a brooding romantic memoir, a pulp mystery, a comic farce, a little cyberpunk action, and a headier science-fiction story. Some are stronger than others. All have some good moments, and some bad. I expect many viewers will enjoy two or three of the stories, but few will walk away completely satisfied with all six. The filmmakers make it difficult to engage with any of the individual stories since they tell them all at the same time, cross-cutting from one to another at an often alarming pace. Sometimes there will be parallels, in action scenes, in love scenes, and in moments of despair or dread, but it doesn't happen nearly as much as it should. More often than not the different narratives and tones and pacing end up clashing. Then again, some of the stories depend on the context provided by the others, and wouldn't be able to stand alone by themselves.

I have to commend Tykwer and the Wachowskis for attempting something this huge in scale and this conceptually daring. I've seen films use this kind of structure successfully before, notably Yoshihiro Nakamura's "Fish Story," which told three different stories that were revealed to be connected. However, "Fish Story" didn't make nearly as many demands on its audience. The "Cloud Atlas" stories are more complicated and involve more characters. In the Zachry story, for instance, the characters speak a pidgin form of English which requires some significant concentration to comprehend. The Frobisher story is primarily concerned with the art of musical composition, and the Sonmi 451 story has to introduce the concept of Fabricants. A viewer has a steep learning curve and ends up having to juggle the particulars of a half dozen different universes over the course of the movie's nearly three-hour running time.

Then there's the gimmick with having the same cast for each story. You may have heard about the controversy about the "Cloud Atlas" actors playing different ethnicities and genders through the use of make-up. The effect is wildly uneven, with some of the transformations done so well that the actors are totally unrecognizable, but others are terrible. Easily the worst and the most distracting example is the Sonmi 451 story, where Jim Sturgess and several other Caucasian actors play Asian characters, but fail to resemble any actual Asian person who ever lived. Trying to make Doona Bae look like a Caucasian woman is a similarly doomed affair, rendering several important scenes almost laughable. You could argue over the merit of the directors' artistic intentions in choosing to do this, but the execution is simply not good enough to pass muster.

However, there are some wonderful moments that do make all the effort and the frustration worthwhile. Doona Bae singlehandedly saves the Sonmi 451 story with her performance. Ben Whishaw does the same for the Robert Frobisher one. Though there are some elements that don't work in the Zachry story, the worldbuilding is fantastic, and it ended up being the one I wished we could have seen a full feature for. "Cloud Atlas" relies far too much on gimmicks and narrative tricks, to the point where the basic storytelling suffers for it. And yet, there are sequences where everything clicks, and the pieces do add up to a greater whole. It's such an interesting puzzle of a picture, it's hard not to be drawn into the fun of figuring out how all of these myriad, wildly different stories and characters connect. It's a mess, but it's a fascinating mess, and even occasionally a very entertaining mess.

So with all those caveats in mind, I recommend it. If you have three hours to spare and want to give your brain a workout, give it a chance. There hasn't ever been a film quite like "Cloud Atlas," and I doubt we'll see another like it in a long, long time.
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