A Great Achievement!

Rating: 8/10 (5 February 2013)

Cloud Atlas is unlike any film I have seen before, it tells a number of different stories spanning across centuries, with many big name actors playing multiple roles across those time lines sounds confusingbut something about it just works. It has the big names (Tom Hanks, Hugh Grant, and Halle Berry to name a few) and a big budget. Making this film was certainly an ambitious task, and yet somehow it flows effortlessly through multiple stories while never really feeling disconnected. You get a real sense that EVERYTHING in this film was meant to be there. Each time line connects to another, and if you don't pay attention (for a pretty hefty 2hrs 50mins) you will miss important plot points. It kept me engaged for the whole film.
In the course of the movie six very different stories are told, and there is something for all types of movie audiences: A 19th century tale of unlikely friendship between a stowaway slave and a young plantation owner. A love story via letters between a gay composer to his partner in the 1930's, A 70's corporate espionage thriller, A comedic account of an wrongfully committed pensioner in an old folks home, a beautiful futuristic clone's battle for freedom, and finally the story of a post-apocalyptic tribesman and his family facing the dangers of the far-future. Although all these stories are so different, we never lose the feeling that they are somehow connected, and as the story plays out, we begin to see these connections come to light.
Without wanting to give away too much about the stories, I will say my favourite was: The modern day set trials of an ageing writer played wonderfully by Jim Broadbent whom is placed in a home by his bitter brother and must escape. Hilarious and quite heart-warming. I also loved the Blade Runner-esque future story involving the question of Artificial Intelligence and consumerism gone mad. It looked beautiful and the relatively unknown Doona Bae was great as the clone/android Sonmi-451.
The master class of acting across these stories is what steals the show. Some were so unrecognisable that I didn't even realise who it was until I saw the credits.
For all its plot twists and connections, Cloud Atlas, for me is about the idea that our actions affect others greatly throughout time, every action we make has a reaction to someone, somewhere. Chaos Theory suggests the smallest act can have great consequences.
Like many movies with such a deep message, Cloud Atlas didn't do as well as perhaps it deserved to in the box office, and it has been met with some criticism from mainstream critics who consider it too showy and self-indulgent. This movie is a great achievement, and one that I hope is looked back on and thought more of in hindsight in the years to come.
Definitely one of the better films I saw in 2012.