Ho-Hum Ideas Made Almost Interesting

Rating: 7/10 (28 September 2014)

David Mitchell's bloated novel of thin ideas was told in a nesting doll manner, with five chronological stories interrupted while climbing to a complete sixth story and then stepping back to complete the remaining stories, ending at the first. The odd but appealing combination of writer-directors Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis prefer to tell the stories through cross-cutting--and turn in a more satisfying experience than the book ever was. It's a good, not great, film, primarily because Mitchell's concept--that we are connected, even by such tenuous connections as a birthmark, making us a sea of change--is hardly impressive enough to sustain a film running close to three hours; and there are also glaring plot holes in the script borne by the Wachowskis' insistence on stuffing in action sequences which didn't exist in Mitchell's narrative. But the stories are told with grace and the fact that the majority of the cast (which includes Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent and the Wachowskis' go-to for bad guys, Hugo Weaving) play multiple roles--many of them performed in drag--does more to advance MItchell's ho-hum concepts than he ever could.