So that’s the lesson out of the way. Now we can discuss what an extraordinary achievement just making the film (almost) work is. For Cloud Atlas is not one film but rather six short stories set during six time periods linked together by single elements. To emphasise the links and the interconnectivity theme, each of the dozen or so main actors appears in different stories portraying a different character or even characters, sometimes for only seconds of screen time.
Now in theory that’s fine and it probably sounded like a really good idea at the casting meetings. But in practice, nothing is gained by having men play women and vice versa (except for Monty Python). It doesn’t matter how good Hugo Weaving is at playing bad guys, he just doesn’t convince as an imposing nursing home matron. Similarly, Asian women don’t make for convincing non-Asian women or male bellhops, and, likewise, Hugh Grant will never look 70 (unlike Tom Hanks), probably not even when he is 70.
That not withstanding, each actor is outstanding in some of their less made-up roles, though Hugh Grant is great as a cannibalistic post-apocalyptic murderous tribal chief.
Despite the distractions of playing “spot the actor”, Cloud Atlas has more than enough past-present-and-future interweaved storylines to keep every viewer alternately entertained or confused for its full three hours.
Storyline cohesion occasionally goes amiss and special effects and make-up are sometimes overdone. Cloud Atlas may be too clever for its own good, but it is unavoidably clever nonetheless.
