Cloud Atlas explores how the actions and consequences of individual lives impact one another throughout the past, the present and the future. Action, mystery and romance weave dramatically through the story as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero and a single act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution in the distant future. Each member of the ensemble appears in multiple roles as the stories move through time.
We normally can't see dead people, but that doesn't mean they're not like threads disappearing below a tapestry's surface and resurfacing elsewhere. A clarification of sorts.
A film which piles on the action, the romance, the philosophical inquiry and the silly accents until the viewer is left punch-drunk and reeling. Seriously, what's not to love?
Despite its shortcomings, it's worth seeing and worth trying to get your head around days after you have. Revolutionary or gimmicky? Good news: Not quite either.
