An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.
A boy stands on a station platform as a train is about to leave. Should he go with his mother or stay with his father? Infinite possibilities arise from this decision. As long as he doesn't choose, anything is possible.
A nine-year-old amateur inventor, Francophile, and pacifist searches New York City for the lock that matches a mysterious key left behind by his father, who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
As a modern-day scientist, Tommy is struggling with mortality, desperately searching for the medical breakthrough that will save the life of his cancer-stricken wife, Izzi.
Director:
Darren Aronofsky
Stars:
Hugh Jackman,
Rachel Weisz,
Sean Patrick Thomas
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw), born with a superior olfactory sense, creates the world's finest perfume. His work, however, takes a dark turn as he searches for the ultimate scent.
Everything is connected: an 1849 diary of an ocean voyage across the Pacific; letters from a composer to his lover; a thriller about a conspiracy at a nuclear power plant; a farce about a publisher in a nursing home; a rebellious clone in futuristic Korea; and the tale of a tribe living on post-apocalyptic Hawaii far in the future.Written by
Anonymous
The film went through numerous difficulties to land a financial backer, including studio Warner Brothers' decision to pull out when they didn't like the numbers. The directors had waived their fees and started putting in their own money to keep the project afloat. Lana Wachowski credited Tom Hanks with helping get the film off the ground, and he inspired many of the cast and crew by being the first to fly to Berlin to begin shooting the film. According to Wachowski, Hanks was very enthusiastic about the project. See more »
Goofs
Although the Luisa Rey/Isaac Sachs segment is announced as taking place in San Francisco in the year 1973, Sachs mentions to Luisa that his flight had been delayed by the Air Traffic Controllers' strike. That strike took place eight years later in 1981 during the Reagan administration. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Zachry:
[shivering beside the fire]
Oh, lonesome night. And babbits bawling, the wind biting the bone. Wind like this... full of voices. Ancestry howling at you, yibbering stories, all voices tied up into one. One voice differing. One voice, whispering out there, spying from the dark. The fangy devil, Old Georgie hisself. Mm. Now your ear up close, and I'll yarn you about the first time we met, eye to eye.
See more »
Crazy Credits
When a montage is shown of all the characters the actors are playing, the font of the names changes with each time period. See more »
I didn't find it to be a mess at all, and it was certainly the best thing the Wachowskis have ever done. I'm not sure how the directing duties were distributed, so I'll uniformly praise Tom Tykwer as well.
I haven't read the book, so I can't make any comparisons there, but I don't often leave a film adaptation wanting to read the novel afterwards, as I did after seeing this.
Visually stunning, epic in scope, a strong score; the sort of film that you're constantly amazed was ever made and happy it was. Equal parts comedy, romance, thriller, and dystopian speculative fiction, it really is an astounding mix of disparate elements.
The biggest overall failure was definitely some of the make-up effects - trying to turn Doona Bae into a believable red-headed Caucasian woman was simply distracting - but the overall art & sound design was incredible.
If I could turn channels while watching TV and switch between stories and narratives as seamlessly and as deftly as the editing in Cloud Atlas, it would honestly be hard to go back to simply watching one show at a time.
Truly a marvel of multitasking on so many levels. Great stuff.
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I didn't find it to be a mess at all, and it was certainly the best thing the Wachowskis have ever done. I'm not sure how the directing duties were distributed, so I'll uniformly praise Tom Tykwer as well.
I haven't read the book, so I can't make any comparisons there, but I don't often leave a film adaptation wanting to read the novel afterwards, as I did after seeing this.
Visually stunning, epic in scope, a strong score; the sort of film that you're constantly amazed was ever made and happy it was. Equal parts comedy, romance, thriller, and dystopian speculative fiction, it really is an astounding mix of disparate elements.
The biggest overall failure was definitely some of the make-up effects - trying to turn Doona Bae into a believable red-headed Caucasian woman was simply distracting - but the overall art & sound design was incredible.
If I could turn channels while watching TV and switch between stories and narratives as seamlessly and as deftly as the editing in Cloud Atlas, it would honestly be hard to go back to simply watching one show at a time.
Truly a marvel of multitasking on so many levels. Great stuff.