Cloud Atlas (2012)

I'm not sure how well Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski siblings adapted David Mitchell's novel of the same name but as a cinematic experience they really crafted a fascinating film.  Time has no bounds as they tell multiple stories using the same group of actors.  Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess and Jim Broadbent share an acting experiment that allows them to push their talents to new heights. There's the American lawyer exploring New Zealand in the mid-1800s who becomes sick.  There's the English composer who becomes the assistant of an aging composer during the '30s.  There's the American Journalist trying to uncover corruption of a Nuclear power plant during the '70s.  There's a publisher and writer who becomes a prisoner of a retirement home in the present year.  And lastly two future stories, one about a clone-girl who escapes a life of service to trigger a great revolution and the most distant story of a time on Earth where human kind split into two, one group very technologically advanced and the other much more tribal.  There's a lot of variety and how they all come together thematically works like a song.  I celebrate this film mostly because it was made at all and that such an expensive art project turned out so beautiful.  Sadly it bombed at the box office meaning it might be awhile before another complex invention like this gets made again.  Grade: B+