3.5 stars. Rating: R, for violence, profanity, nudity, sexuality, drug use and often disturbing dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.26.12
Shirley MacLaine will adore this
film, and I’m sure she already has done her part to goose sales of David
Mitchell’s source novel.
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| Investigative journalist Luisa Rey (Halle Berry), poking about behind the scenes at a nuclear power plant, is surprised when scientist Isaac Sachs (Tom Hanks, center) doesn't turn her in to CEO Lloyd Hooks (Hugh Grant). She soon learns that Sachs has just as much reason to be concerned by what is taking place under Hooks' watch. |
Rarely has the interconnectivity
of past lives been conveyed so cleverly on screen, and certainly never before
with such audacious snap. Even if you snicker at the premise and the multiple
casting gimmick — about which, more later — it’s impossible to deny the skill
with which these half-dozen interlinked stories unfold.
Despite an indulgent length of
nearly three hours, directors Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski
maintain an impressive degree of suspense and momentum, layering cliff-hanger
upon cliff-hanger. We can’t help being caught up in the vastness of this
sweeping fantasy, or the intimacy of its individual storylines.
And yet, when all is done and the
screen fades to black, it seems like a lot of fuss and bother about very
little. Just as Christopher Nolan’s Inception was an overcooked journey to
discover the identity of Rosebud, Cloud Atlas builds to its climax only as a
means of reflecting upon the endurance of true love, and the notion that —
historically, contemporarily or in a future yet to come — individuals can make
a difference, and always have.
As one character says, “What is
an ocean, but a multitude of drops?”
Not exactly an earth-shattering
revelation, but I suppose the thought is comforting.
The interlaced narratives are
driven, to a degree, by the shared memory of a piece of music: the Cloud Atlas
Sextet, a symphony written by young ne’er-do-well Robert Frobisher (Ben
Whishaw), during his 1936 stint as amanuensis to cranky old composer Vyvyan
Ayrs (Jim Broadbent), years beyond his prime. The spirit of this music —
actually composed by Tykwer and score collaborators Johnny Klimek and Reinhold
Heil — imbues these and all other characters, and the theme itself bridges
events from one time period to the next.
