Review of Cloud Atlas (2012) by Gavin S — 04 Mar 2014

This might just be one of the most ambitious films ever made. It's not a crowning success, nor is it an abysmal failure. It's a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma to paraphrase Churchill.

After about 20 minutes, I decided to stop trying to follow anything intellectually, and just let the story happen, and be immersed in this beautiful world of worlds. The most sprawling film carrying the most simple of messages: our actions have consequences, maybe not in this life, but somewhere down the line of our karmic souls.

Everyone is connected, we are all individuals yearning for freedom, yet sometimes unable to achieve it. Visually stunning alone this movie should be admired, but the chances taken, the attempts to take such a major set of themes and do it in 3 hours, well it has to be admired.

I didn't feel this was self-indulgent, and at no point was I bored. That's hard to do with a 90 minute movie sometimes, so bravo there. There's a little of everything here for everyone, and the performances are all very strong: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Jim Sturgess, Ben Wishaw, Hugh Grant, Susan Sarandon, James D'Arcy, Keith David, Hugo Weaving and more.

Amazed they did such great work with most of the main players doing 3-6 roles each, yet keeping them just different enough not to bleed into each other, but similar enough to suggest reincarnated versions.

A great movie always leaves one asking questions, and this one raised the biggies, like why are we here, life after death, meaning of life, love, etc. A remarkable achievement, no matter the result.