Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell is a well regarded book. But is the movie a travesty or the best that could be done with such complicated source material? We’re here to find out!
Sponsor Mark in Manhattan (thanks, Mark!) loved the book but wanted us to help make sense of the movie. We do our best for four people who haven’t read it and we discover… that we’re super confused. It’s a mess, guys! Not awful, but such a mess.
On the plus side you do get to play “Find Tom Hanks” which is always fun.
I love the book (and the author) like I love ice cream, but I really didn’t hate the movie either.
You’ve probably heard this opinion by now, but if you wanted a more interesting storyline, the composer thread in the book is a good bet. Firstly, it’s a bi male storyline, and we (I’m a biased, openly bi male) are a significantly smaller minority than gay men, and don’t need to be erased from yet another story. Secondly, it involves the apprentice sleeping with the master’s wife. Did you want drama that doesn’t depend on the protagonists’ escape from oppression? Turns out that you can get that in this book, where a character can be both queer and a morally imperfect individual, and there’s time to at least partially explain both things. Yeah, in the original, the old composer is not so much a selfish homophobe, but rather an established genius who is understandably angry at the young guy who steals his wife and who also thinks he’s God’s gift to music. Yes, there’s good cause to take the young Guy’s side, but it’s not so simple, and the young guy is also a libidinous, arrogant prick himself.Funnily enough, even though I hated the above sexuality thing, I think that the ridiculous makeup was the only thing standing between this book and the best movie you could make out of it. The book was a masterpiece of English style, yada yada yada. But you could have done better. It might be insane to expect filmmakers to match the original, but nothing else would do justice to the book.