Cloud Atlas: Does a Movie with Reincarnation Succeed?

I was intrigued by the previews for Cloud Atlas, which seemed to promise a story of reincarnation, but I heard mixed things when it came out.

I rented it recently and I am really glad that I did. I absolutely loved it. Just the weaving of the stories alone was masterful. Take it from a trained novelist, that is not easy to do!

The same actors played different embodiments of the same soul and there was variety in those experiences as well as some behaviors that were prevalent in all that person’s incarnations. For example, I liked that Tom Hank’s characters tended to be selfish and greedy, but that was something he was able to overcome in one of his lives!

It was so grand yet also about the little moments and choices in our lives and how they create our future. Most of all it showed the power of love in every age. Past, present, and future there are themes that make us human, but love most of all.

I highly recommend it.

It’s done by the same people as The Matrix, but I liked Cloud Atlas better myself.

I thought it might be confusing with all the different people and times and plots, but it wasn’t at all. I didn’t understand how it came together at first, but I just watched and let it be and eventually I saw what it built to.

I think this is the best kind of storytelling, which illuminates truths about the human condition and also brings us characters to care about.

(Also, I had no idea from the preview that it has such actors as Hugo Weaving, Hugh Grant, and Susan Sarandon along with Tom Hanks and Halle Berry) I know there’s been some criticism on having actors play races other than their own, but it was a necessity to the story: the same people are born in different times and places. And an Asian actress plays a woman who is worshiped as a Goddess for hundreds of years into the future, so it seems to me like the racial aspect is not so bad. But that’s just my perspective.

It will certainly intrigue you. I hope that you’ll rent it and let me know what you think!