CLOUD ATLAS (2012)

Here is a strange and wonderful film: just as wonderful though not quite as strange as the novel on which it's based, but if I hadn't read it I wouldn't know any better.  Films of such a gigantic scope don't come around much; truly thoughtful movies tend to be low-key, while grandeur is saved for box-office-safe action movies.  It's the synthesis of two great artists of film who have collaborated to make something possibly greater than either one could make on his or her own.  Those artists are the Wachowskis, who hit it big with The Matrix trilogy but haven't quite gotten due credit for their superb noir picture Bound or for their underrated piece of pure cotton candy Speed Racer, and Tom Tykwer, whose Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is one of the best and saddest tragedies in recent history.

Cloud Atlas is made up of six stories, set at times ranging from 1849 to 1973 to far, far in the future after they stop counting.  They are stories of human relationships that cause people to rethink the conventions of the world they live in.  In the book, the stories run chronologically from 1 through 6 and then recede back from 5 through 1 again; the movie understandably modifies this format and weaves the stories in and out of each other.  That Tykwer and the Wachowskis, along with their editors Alexander Berner and Claus Wehlisch, are able to tell six stories concurrently without losing momentum is astounding.

They do so mostly through clever and precise casting of familiar faces in recurring appearances: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, James D'Arcy, Hugo Weaving, Keith David, Susan Sarandon.  Most of the actors play different characters in more than one of the stories, but they're often used as bridges between the stories to hold the movie together.  As the movie goes on, the connection and shared meaning between the stories becomes clearer.  Characters' journeys parallel each other, and each one leads to a different version of the same conclusion.

Hanks is more dynamic than he's been in years, given the opportunity to play the most varied characters of any actor in the film.  He's most commanding in the sixth story, set far in the future, as an aborigine who struggles with guilt after witnessing a horrible occurrence, but he also gets to play two of the movie's weirdest supporting characters: in 1849 as an eccentric doctor, and in 2012 as... well, you'll have to see for yourself.  Berry is also a strong presence, and the story she leads (set in 1973) could pass for a decent spy thriller (but I've just given away a small bit of the movie's game).

Broadbent is a delight, playing a particularly loathsome publisher in the 2012 story who redeems himself in an especially loony and heartwarming way.  Whishaw headlines the most complex and tragic story, of a down-and-out composer who's hired by a cantankerous, old and dying composer to help him finish his final piece.  Weaving does what he does best, playing the villain in each of the six pieces.  Grant, far removed from his usual romcom comfort zone, has a lot of fun in several villainous roles as well.  In addition to its all-star cast the movie has two great performances from lesser-known actors: Doona Bae, who plays several roles but is most memorable in the Philip K. Dick-like fifth story, as a "fabricant" who becomes self-aware; and David Gyasi, who in the film's first story plays a Pacific Island slave who's rescued by a lawyer (Sturgess).

Cloud Atlas is technically brilliantly made.  Each setting is completely realized and feels wildly different from the last.  The makeup is incredibly elaborate, which is usually a great bother; I'm a little bit fed up with movies that cake a bunch of makeup on young actors to make them look old rather than just cast an old actor, but here I didn't seem to mind.  The differing genres of each story are also handled well, from the sweeping and old-fashioned 1849 (directed by the Wachowskis) to the somber chamber piece in 1936 (Tykwer) to the gritty crime thriller of 1973 (Tykwer) to the Hitchcockian melodrama of 2012 (Tykwer) to the squeaky-clean future of 2144 (Wachowskis) to the rough jungle of the distant future (Wachowskis).

If the movie has a flaw, it is in the shaping of the book's Russian-doll format to a mosaic format, which is more conducive to a film.  Because the stories need to weave in and out of each other seamlessly, the links between them are more obvious and the resolution becomes a little bit too heavyhanded.  Though the conclusion is too pat, the movie that leads to it is wondrous.  It is a miracle that Cloud Atlas made it to the screen at all, but here it is.

**** out of ****