Summary
- Cloud Atlas is a sprawling and complex narrative that may require multiple viewings to fully understand and appreciate.
- The film is a grand tapestry of interconnected stories and genres, with each individual tale contributing to the larger narrative.
- Despite its controversies and mixed reviews upon release, Cloud Atlas is a thought-provoking and entertaining sci-fi epic that explores themes of rebirth and the ripple effects of human decisions.
Cloud Atlas is a 2012 science fiction epic, helmed by the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer, adapted from a David Mitchell novel by the same name. The story for both adaptations is largely the same: the narrative focuses on the journey of a single soul as it is reborn in six different bodies across multiple timelines, starting in the year 1849 and going all the way to 2321. The narrative structure for both media is largely the same. Rather than segmenting each story or timeline into separate chapters or segments, all the stories take place at the same time, allowing the pivotal junctures in each to stand out in a singular rise-and-fall sort of motion.
Cloud Atlas feels like a nerdy film. And not in the way where the audience has to do quite a bit of homework before watching the film, but the scale of the narrative as a whole can feel so sprawling that it may take you to watch it twice (or more) to really wrap your head around the entire narrative. That said, the film does a great job of first throwing the audience into the deep end, and then slowly peeling back the layers of how they got there, ultimately creating a fulfilling — if heady — experience.
Cloud Atlas
- Release Date
- October 26, 2012
- Rating
- R
Initial Reception to Cloud Atlas
In pop culture, Cloud Atlas has a sort of unique niche that it has found itself in. Despite The Wachowskis’ unmitigated success with The Matrix‘s first film, their stock has somewhat dropped as consistent filmmakers, as almost every project since has opened itself up to polarizing reviews from critics and audiences alike. Cloud Atlas is no different: upon its release, the film received somewhat mixed reviews and was a commercial failure, despite its almost $150 million budget.
Most people today have either forgotten it to bigger bombs in the Wachowskis’ career, like Jupiter Ascending, while others have poked fun at it for its use of unconventional language and controversial film techniques (more on this later). Funnily enough, there are two separate Cloud Atlas-related gags in Silicon Valley and Rick & Morty that have called it nigh unwatchable, but how is the film overall, really?
It’s Better Than You Remember (& Easier to Follow)
In short, Cloud Atlas is still pretty great. Considering the themes of rebirth, love as the ultimate superpower, and the butterfly effect of sheer willpower, it’s easy to see why The Wachowskis were so drawn to Mitchell’s original story and chose to adapt it. Despite the film’s massive scope, almost every story is a singular, personal tale that adds to the grand tapestry of the larger narrative by creating a sum that is more than just its individual parts. Each story complements the greater narrative, as well as each other, despite juggling multiple genres, time-skips, and six different main characters to follow.
To quickly sum up each story and era, here’s a helpful breakdown:
|
Story Setting |
Story Synopsis |
|---|---|
|
Pacific Islands, 1849 |
American lawyer Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess) witnesses the whipping of Moriori slave Autua, who stows away on his ship and subsequently saves him from being slowly poisoned by the doctor on board. |
|
Cambridge/Edinburgh, 1936 |
Robert Frobisher (played by Ben Whishaw), a young and hopeful composer, runs away to Edinburgh to shadow successful composer Vivyan Eyrs while writing letters to his lover, Rufus Sixsmith (James D’Arcy), and spending his free time reading the journal of Adam Ewing. |
|
San Francisco, 1973 |
Luisa Rey (Halle Berry) is a journalist on the hunt to unearth the mysterious connection between the murder of an aged Rufus Sixsmith and the upcoming nuclear power plant. In her search, she finds the letters exchanged between Sixsmith and Frobisher. |
|
London, 2012 |
Greedy and selfish book publisher Timothy Cavendish (Jim Broadbent) finds himself in a soup when his criminal client launches a literary critic off the penthouse of an awards ceremony function, and subsequently must run from his goons. His brother tricks him into staying at an old-age home, where he is terrorized by the resident staff and begins to plan his escape. He reads a story based on Luisa Rey’s ordeal on his way to the home. |
|
Neo Seoul, 2144 |
In a capitalist dystopia, popular food chain Papa Song’s creates genetically engineered waitstaff (a la Hooters) who serve customers day by day, until they are “retired.” Sonmi-451 (Doona Bae) was one such server, who is rescued by a good samaritan and finds herself in the eye of the storm as she becomes the messiah for the coming revolution against Unanimity — corporate tyrants that oversee every little detail of the world. She is inspired by a film adaptation of Cavendish’s ordeals, and, in an ironic twist of fate, uses his message to change the world. |
|
Big Island, 2321 |
After the fall of civilization, humans become divided into two species: the hunting and gathering Valleysmen, who pray to Sonmi, and the technologically advanced Prescients. Zachry (Tom Hanks), a cowardly Valleysman, becomes the village pariah after he watches his nephew and brother-in-law murdered by a cannibalistic tribe living nearby. When a Prescient woman makes her way into his village, he must dispel his preconcieved notions and take her help to save his clan. |
With a two and a half hour runtime, Cloud Atlas is surprisingly limber and a much more accessible experience than one would be led to believe. Despite a vague and intimidating premise, you’d be surprised to know how entertaining and funny the film actually is. The story is expertly crafted to move between each timeline, and the filmmakers have made a conscious decision to recast the same group of actors in multiple roles across its different eras.
Ideas of Karmic justice and the themes of the rippling effects of certain decisions become more and more evident with each subsequent viewing, proving that Cloud Atlas is truly an epic sci-fi undertaking worthy of a place among the other greats of its kind. That said, despite all the good, you can sometimes feel like the source material would be a more natural expansion on the story, especially for some of the story beats in the Neo Seoul chapter, as many big realizations have to happen quite rapidly. But keeping this in mind, the directors have managed to pull off a Herculean task of adapting a book that was labeled as fundamentally un-adaptable, which is a feat in and of itself.
Cloud Atlas‘s story itself is an interesting reflection on human nature and how we keep making the same mistakes throughout the ages, irrespective of the time period we exist in. The story is also oddly prescient in its portrayal of the future and how hyper-capitalist and technologically-reliant the human species becomes. Considering the book came out in 2004 and the film in 2012, its observations of human avarice and society’s defiant march towards its abject doom are a little too similar to events unfolding in the last 10-15 years.
Aspects That Have Aged Poorly
Cloud Atlas is not without its faults, though. Despite the narrative successes, ultimately one will have to appreciate this film within its own bubble, as there are certain real-world factors that could taint the overall experience. Most obviously, the entire Neo Seoul story garnered significant controversy for its use of yellowface, using prosthetics on non-East Asian actors to emulate Korean facial features. One could potentially argue that humanity had evolved to that point to develop a singular biological “race” over hundreds of years, but the real-world implications of this practice dates back to some pretty sketchy racist connotations, which are hard to look past.
The filmmakers have since come out and spoken out against the controversy, arguing they have done both race and gender-swapping for actors of all races and genders in Cloud Atlas. Still, this issue does stand out as one of the bigger controversies. There was also the issue surrounding the casting of David Gyasi as a Moriori character, both offending and confusing audiences familiar and unfamiliar with the culture.
A Sociological Perspective
Cloud Atlas is a unique film from a purely sociological perspective. Somehow, only the Wachowskis could have helmed such a huge film and come away from it relatively unscathed despite its controversies. All the actors who worked on the film spoke quite favorably about the filming experience and expressed disappointment at the low box office numbers.
Despite it all, we feel its worth giving this film a watch: outside of its general themes, we feel people may have their own personal takeaways from this story, or at least act as an interesting reflection of today’s world through the lens of filmmakers in the early-2010s.
Rent Cloud Atlas on AppleTV
