If you take Bright Star, The Parallax View, The Road and Amadeus, add a sprinkle of Blade Runner and a dash of One Foot In The Grave – bear with us here - give them a shake and pour the heady mix out onto the screen, you’d have something close to Cloud Atlas. Well, probably. The whole concept is so melon-twistingly different that we need to see it to believe it - despite the five-minute trailer that’s recently dazzled us. To help prep for Cloud Atlas we’ve assembled everything you need to know about the Wachowskis/Tykwer epic...
Written by David Mitchell – not the one from Peep Show – Cloud Atlas was published in 2004 to the excited whisper of literary critics going quietly gaga. It made the shortlist for that year's Booker Prize, and the fact that it ultimately missed out to Alan Hollinghurst's The Line Of Beauty hasn't stopped it maturing into a much-loved work of contemporary fiction. People who read it back then rhapsodised about the way it tombola'ed different genres into six mesmerising, interlocking narratives, swept up in its ambition and scope. (They also said things like: "There's no way they'll ever make this into a movie" but we'll gloss over that.)
The Film...
Directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski and Tom Tykwer, a talent troika about whom we're legally obliged to use the word 'visionary', it's a collaboration of filmmakers as well as actors. "It's never been attempted before, I don't think", says cast member Ben Whishaw, "three people sharing the directing responsibility of a film." It could equally be argued that, with six storylines to shoot, three directors is three too few. Still with Tykwer and the Wachowskis boasting a CV with films as diverse as The Matrix, Bound, Speed Racer, Run Lola Run and Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer, there was no shortage of creative firepower when the film's Berlin shoot kicked off in September 2011.
The Script...
The book's unique six-story structure – think of a Matryoshka doll with story strands fitting neatly into one another – posed a unique challenge to the three writer/directors. In short: how to ensure a single, coherent through-line without the film (a) confusing the heck out of audiences or (b) lasting 14 days. That process took a year. "We decided that if David Mitchell didn't like it, we'd kill the project," says Andy Wachowski. "Fortunately he loved it."
The Production...
"Hard to explain, hard to finance" is a Hollywood truism – which is why we won't see David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest on the big screen anytime soon. "Even though we had this incredible cast, no-one was interested," remembers Andy Wachowski. "The experts said it was too complicated", laughs his sister Lana, "and three directors? That's never going to work." With the exception of Warner Bros., who'll distribute the film in the US, the team were left without big studio backing and turned to German banks, film funds and tax breaks to raise a budget that producer Stefan Arndt puts at "definitely lower" than $100m.
As Andy Wachowski stresses, it is very much an indie movie, albeit with more multi-genre quantum-leaping than your average mumblecore. Each story had its own production unit, with Tykwer focusing on the period elements and the Wachowskis unsurprisingly turning their hands to the sci-fi storylines.
The Plot...
Make that 'plots' plural. The six stories begin in the 19th century with American actuary Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess) sailing home from the Chatham Islands, recording his voyage in a half-finished diary that resurfaces in the hands of penniless musician Robert Frobisher (Ben Whishaw) in 1930s Belgium. We then find Frobisher's penpal and lover Rufus Sixsmith (James D'Arcy) as the scientist in Reagan's California who lays bare a nuclear conspiracy to investigative journo Luisa Rey (Halle Berry).
Still with us? Good because now it gets really complex. Rey's story – Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery – eventually lands in the lap of vanity publisher Timothy Cavendish (Jim Broadbent) in Noughties London, and his character's fate ties in with a dystopian clone in a near(ish) future called Somni-451 (Doona Bae). Then that leads on to a post-apocalyptic Hawaii where tribesman Zachry (Tom Hanks) and Meronym (Berry again) try to evade cannibals, including a terrifying Hugh Grant. Yes, we used the words 'terrifying' and 'Hugh Grant' in the same sentence.
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Look out for each of the lead actors to appear in every one of the plotlines, from blink-and-you'll-miss-'em cameos to much chunkier roles. These are some of characters revealed so far who will navigate us through the entwining stories.
*The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing
Circa 1850* *Letters from Zedelghem
1931* *Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery
1975* *The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish
Early 21st century* *An Orison of Sonmi~451
Dystopian near future* *Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After
Post-apocalyptic future* Jim Sturgess [
Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess)
Sturgess's experience on The Way Back should stand him in good stead for the role of American notary Adam Ewing, whose fraught Pacific voyage on the Prophetess sees him shunned by his shipmates and infected by a tropical parasite. He charts his journey, as well as the enslavement of the Chatham Island's Moriori people, in The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing.](#) [
Drunk Highlander (Jim Sturgess)
The 'Sturge is back in action in a very real sense and on home soil as a Scottish pub-goer who's involved in a Begbie-style fracas when Nurse Noakes leads a mission to return Cavendish and his fellow care home residents to their carpeted prison.](#) [
Hae-Joo Im (Jim Sturgess)
In the sci-fi section, Jim Sturgess is part of a guerilla cell called 'The Union' that aims to bring down the totalitarian regime called Unanimity. Things to note: (1) he'll be on the run with Somni from some seriously bad people, and (2) he looks a lot more Asian than Sean Connery in You Only Live Twice.](#) [
Tribesman (Ben Whishaw)
A tribal pal of Tom Hank's Zachry, Ben Whishaw sports a lustrous beard as a valleyman in the prelapsarian Slooshin' section. He (and his beard) come seriously unstuck at the hands of Hugh Grant and his nasty-ass Kona warriors.](#) Tom Hanks [
Dr. Henry Goose (Tom Hanks)
The one man to treat the ailing Ewing kindly is Dr. Henry Goose – well, he is played by Tom Hanks – a medicine man who claims to be "surgeon to the London nobility". Goose doesn't share Ewing's enlightened view on life.](#) [
Hotel Manager (Tom Hanks)
The smallest role Tom Hanks has played in the last 30 years and definitely the wartiest, his crumpled hotel manager is still a fairly pivotal piece in the Zedelghem puzzle. It's him who harries Frobisher for payment when the young musician is at his lowest ebb, and who ultimately shepherds him away to an uncertain future.](#) [
Isaac Sachs (Tom Hanks)
Another on the payrool at the Swannekke nuclear plant, Hank's conscious-pricked scientist is by his own reckoning, "Too cowardly to be a warrior, but not enough of a coward to roll over like a good doggy." Could he be Luisa Rey's way in to the sinister shenanigans afoot at Seaboard Corporation? Well, probably, yes.](#) [
Dermot 'Duster' Hoggins (Tom Hanks)
Even in a film in which Halle Berry plays a white woman and Hugo Weaving appears as a woman, the sight of Tom Hanks chucking a man off a building will prompt some serious double takes. Then again, his character is a gangster type with a Fu Manchu tache and a penchant for gold chains, whose thick lit memoir is, literally, critic-proof, so perhaps that will clue people up.](#) [
Cavendish Look-Alike (Tom Hanks)
Here's Tom Hanks playing Jim Broadbent in a movie of a screenplay from another part of the movie. Still with us? We're not. Still, the matryoshka nature of the storytelling is at its most intricate in this future-Korea segment which sees Sonmi-451 watching an old movie or 'disney' (note the Nadsat influence of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange) called The Ghastly Ordeal Of Timothy Cavendish.](#) [
Valleysman Zachry (Tom Hanks)
Judging by Cloud Atlas's trailer - which should be a decent barometer seeing it's as long as entire movies – Hanks gets most of his grittiest beats in the segment set in Hawaii after "The Fall", an untold apocalypse that makes Judgment Day look like a summer fete. When the patois-speaking tribesman isn't evading cannibals, he's got tech'ed up apocalypse survivor Meronym (Berry) to pass the time with. Unfortunately he's always evading cannibals.](#) Ben Whishaw [
Cabin Boy (Ben Whishaw)
The vessel that features in The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing has an impressive manifest of lemon-sucking scallywags. Scurrying up that mask? That'll be Jim 'Barnacles' Broadbent. Sluicing out the galley? Ben 'Water Boy' Whishaw. On this boat, even the sauerkraut has a BAFTA nomination.](#) [
Robert Frobisher (Ben Whishaw)
After donning Q's funky anorak in Skyfall, Ben Whishaw will return to period climes (Belgium in 1931, to be exact) as Robert Frobisher, a musician with the ethics of Moriarty and the bank balance of a church mouse. His plan, to inveigle his way into composer Vyvyan Ayrs' affections, is faithfully recorded in letters to his friend/lover Rufus Sixsmith (James D'Arcy).](#) [
Georgette (Ben Whishaw)
No, you're not seeing things: that is Q Branch, Ben Whishaw, as you're never seen him before, even in the more delirious bits of Bright Star. He's playing another role slightly bulked up from the book, Denholme's wife Georgette, a latent source of animosity between Denholme and his brother Timothy dating back to a marital indiscretion.](#) [
Tribesman (Ben Whishaw)
A tribal pal of Tom Hank's Zachry, Ben Whishaw sports a lustrous beard as a valleyman in the prelapsarian Slooshin' section. He (and his beard) come seriously unstuck at the hands of Hugh Grant and his nasty-ass Kona warriors. ](#) Jim Broadbent [
Captain Molyneux (Jim Broadbent)
Cap'n Broadbent pilots the good(ish) ship Prophetess – the vessel's name is in the book rather than the movie – on her Pacific voyage. As you'd expect from an old sea dog, he has a face that's not so much weathered as hurricaned, the swarthy looks of an man who could shiver your timbers with his eyes closed.](#) [
Vyvyan Ayrs (Jim Broadbent)
That composer, a vain and cynical man who still manages to inspire great things in his young apprentice, is played by Jim Broadbent. Author David Mitchell claims he's modelled on English composer Frederick Delius. ](#) [
Timothy Cavendish (Jim Broadbent)
The Victor Meldrew of vanity publishing, Timothy Cavendish finds out why his client Dermot 'Duster' Hoggins (Tom Hanks) boasts that nickname when he very publicly murders a London literary critic. Cavendish's life is turned upside down as a result, with Hoggins' goons after his lucre and only a manuscript of Half-Life: The First Luisa Rey Mystery to keep his spirits from flagging.](#) [
Korean Musician (Jim Broadbent)
This is Jim Broadbent turning up again as a sci-fi busker on the streets of future Seoul. Trust it, it is. Really.](#) Halle Berry [
Native (Halle Berry)
In a rare non-speaking part for an actual Oscar winner (leaving aside The Artist obviously) Halle Berry appears briefly as a Chatham Island native in the first story. She witnesses the flogging of a David Gyas's Moriori, Autua, in a scene where we expect the camera to linger longest of the pained features of Adam Ewing. Set eyes to 'peeled'.](#) [
Jocasta Ayrs (Halle Berry)
The role of Ayrs' beautiful, straying wife Jocasta is taken by Halle Berry. Yes, she's white. Yes, there are prosthetics involved. No, it won't turn out like Lenny Henry in True Identity.](#) [
Luisa Rey (Halle Berry)
Berry, who'll be doing a lot of Cloud Atlas's heavy lifting, appears in the third story sans prosthetics as '70s reporter Luisa Rey. She's given a tip off about a potentially deadly nuclear conspiracy that seems to be playing out like a repeat of Silkwood. The tipper-offer? Rufus Sixsmith...](#) [
Indian Party Guess (Halle Berry)
In the absence of Peter Sellers, Halle Berry appears as an Indian partygoer at the book launch that ends so badly for Cavendish (and a certain book critic). Hopefully, there'll be a small elephant and some pranks with loo role.](#) [
Ovid (Halle Berry)
Bust out of her replicant-y existence by the Sturge and his Union buddies, Sonmi is deliver to Halle Berry's cosmetic surgeon who removes her collar and rejiggles her facial features to avoid suspicion. Unfortunately, as she later explains to the Archivist, the powers-that-be later rejiggle it back. There's a show trial, see, and she's the one they're showing.](#) [
Meronym (Halle Berry)
Zachry's wilderness companion, Halle Berry plays one of the few surviving Prescients, self-appointed guardians of what remains of civilisation. Look out for a comet-shaped birthmark on her shoulder that recurs in other plot lines.](#) James D'Arcy [
Rufus Sixsmith (James D'Arcy)
The recipient of Robert Frobisher's letters from Bruges is a scientist and "musical oaf" who plays distant co-conspirator in his friend's (and lover) schemes. His ethics may be a little shady in this segment, but his dedication to science has a moral purity that sparks another narrative strand into thrilling life.](#) [
Rufus Sixsmith (James D'Arcy)
While Sixsmith is a significant but peripheral figure in Frobisher's story, his time comes in the Alan Pakula-style section which should be literally overflowing with assassins, shady villians, dodgy '70s 'taches, nasty execs and documents marked 'top secret', probably clasped in the sweaty mitts of said execs. He's graduated from young scientist to 60-something one with a secret in his troubled grasp.](#) [
Nurse James (James D'Arcy)
Dishing out the pills at Cavendish's care home prison is Nurse James, played by James D'Arcy. Will he be playing good nurse/bad nurse to Hugo Weaving's Noakes? We'll find out when it's bed bath time.](#) [
The Archivist (James D'Arcy)
James D'Arcy fans set teeth to 'gnash' as the actor is shorn of his lovely locks as the archivist sent to interview fabricant Somni-451 in 22nd century Korea. It's an interrogation that, like the Voight-Kampff test in Blade Runner, is meant to preserve the thoughts of an artificial intelligence for future generations via an 'orison' device. David Frost, he ain't. ](#) Hugh Grant [
Reverend Horrox (Hugh Grant)
Went out and didn't notice it was raining? Tough, because Hugh Grant is getting his beouf on as a Belgian hostelry's security man and you're not allowed back in to fetch a brolly. This means Grant can add 'tough guy' to a list of roles that also includes a missionary, a slippery CEO and a cannibal.](#) [
Hotel Heavy (Hugh Grant)
Hugh Grant will first appear as faux-Darwinist scumbag Horrox, a man who like to have an entire race subjugated before his first bowl of morning sauerkraut. There have many evils have been propagated in God's name through the years, but those teeth take some beating. If Grant had been wearing them for Four Weddings And A Funeral, we're thinking there'd have been at least one wedding fewer.](#) [
Albert Grimaldi (Hugh Grant)
Hugh Grant's first bad-guy role since Bridget Jones and one that's significantly more dangerous, Albert Grimaldi is the CEO of Seaboard Corporation and, ahem, Newsweek Man of the Year. How dangerous is this company? Well, they're a greedy '70s corporation and they run a nuclear power plant. They're not organising Bring Your Daughter To Work Day.](#) [
Denholme Cavendish (Hugh Grant)
One day, a group of thugs associated with Hoggins arrive demanding his share. They tell Cavendish that he has two days to get $50K together. His accountant informs him that, after paying off all of Cavendish's debts, Cavendish only has two thousand dollars to his name. Cavendish turns to his brother, Denholme (Hugh Grant), for assistance. While visiting he sees Denholme's wife, Georgette (Ben Wishaw), with whom he had once had an unfortunate affair. Denholme hears Cavendish out before giving him an address for a hotel known as the Aurora house where Cavendish will be able to hide from the thugs.](#) [
Seer Rhee (Hugh Grant)
Hugh Grant also pops up as the manager of Papa Song, the restaurant where Sonmi works. With its future-kitsch interior and the nefarious Nea So Corpos corporation dishing up the grub, it's a pretty far cry from your local bibimbap joint. Things turn a bit Hell's Kitchen when Grant's Seer Rhee is found suspiciously face down by Sonmi.](#) [
Cannibal (Hugh Grant)
Look closely at this picture. Unless we missed the bit of Notting Hill where HE ATE PEOPLE, this role is a first for Hugh Grant.](#) Hugo Weaving [
Haskell Moore (Hugo Weaving)
The Aussie has played plenty of straight-up villains (The Matrix, Captain America) and shadowy characters (V For Vendetta), and Cloud Atlas gives him the chance to cover the entire spectrum in one go. While Adam Ewing's pa-in-law is not the most vile on show, he's hardly a laugh-riot either. That's him in the trailer muttering darkly about upending "the natural order of this world". That's presumably the same natural order that allows him to get away with those sideburns.](#) [
Tadeusz Kesselring (Hugo Weaving)
Originally named Tadeusz Augustowski in David Mitchell's novel, Kesselring is a German composer who professes to admire Ayrs' work but may have once cuckolded him behind his back. Hugo Weaving, the closest the movie has to a consistent baddie, plays him. Either Kesselring is named after a real-life Luftwaffe general or the directors just thought his name had a nice, ahem, ring to it.](#) [
Bill Smoke (Hugo Weaving)
Hugo Weaving – Agent Smith in a certain other Wachowski film we've forgotten the name of – is back on patrol as the spectacularly nasty Bill Smoke in this segment. He's a corporate henchman and Seabord Corp attack dog and will hopefully be delivering the line "Goodbye, Misssss Rey…" in a Smith-like drawl. Just for old times' sake, you understand.](#) [
Nurse Noakes (Hugo Weaving)
A nasty careworker in the spirit of Nurse Ratchet or the hobble-happy Annie Wilkes, only much, much uglier, Nurse Noakes is the panto villain who makes Timothy Cavendish's life a misery in his Hull hell-hole (or Hull-hole, if you prefer). It's Hugo Weaving doing the honours in another of the film's gender curveballs.](#) [
Hugo Weaving
Details unknown](#) [
Old Georgie (Hugo Weaving)
Weaving's Old Georgie might look like Fagin, but it's souls, not pockets he's interested in picking. Tom Hanks' Zachry and his fellow valleymen believe that he's the devil, so his sinister whispers come freighted with significance. Scarier than Red Skull? Possibly.](#) Doona Bae [
Tilda Ewing (Doona Bae)
Korean actress plays Adam Ewing's American wife in the first of the movie's many race and gender twisteroos. As her husband spans the south Pacific aboard The Prophetess, she's left to fret on the quayside (not literally, that'd be dull for her). Mrs Ewing doesn't feature in the book, an addition presumably designed to establish Adam Ewing's emotion connection to the mainland.](#) [
Sweatshop Worker (Doona Bae)
Doona Bae is a Mexican working in an illegal toy-maker sweatshop in the '70s Luisa Rey storyline. She'll be there when Luisa and Joe Napier (Keith David) run through her factory, trying to get away from evil Bill Smoke.](#) [
Somni-451 (Doona Bae)
Doona Bae has appeared a film in which a giant monster attacks Seoul (The Host, fact fans!), but how will she fare in a brutally soulless future-Korea as a 21st century clone? As the trailer shows, she'll submit to an emotionally draining (for her and us) interview with the faceless corpocracy that's planning her disposal. As Hugo Weaving's sinister apparatchik puts it: "There is a natural order to this world and those who try to upend it do not fare well."](#) *Circa 1850
The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing* *1931
Letters from Zedelghem* *1975
Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery* *Early 21st century
The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish* *Dystopian near future
An Orison of Sonmi~451* *Post-apocalyptic future
Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After*
Between them, Cloud Atlas’s creative forces – Lana and Andy Wachowskis, Tom Tykwer and writer David Mitchell – boast a pretty mean body of work. Between them, on screen and page, they’ve built sci-fi universes, breathless thrillers, neon cityscapes and nostalgic tales of Worcestershire kids who love Fox’s Glacier Mints. If you haven’t already, here’s how to navigate through the eclecticness.
Lana and Andy Wachowski
Directors Tom Tykwer
Director David Mitchell
Writer
Bound (1996)
An instant smash with lovers of classic noirs and teenage boys – a rarely twinned demographic – the Wachowskis' breakthrough film had Double Indemnity running through its veins and a coquettish look on its mush. With Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly's lesbian couple at its heart, it joins The Last Seduction, The Usual Suspects and The Grifters in a mini '90s revival of sexy, murky neo-noirs.
Run Lola Run (1998)
Aka Sliding Döors, this cult thriller saw Tom Tykwer cleverly constructing three wildly different outcomes from one scenario with a dynamism that got him noticed outside his native Germany. A breathless Franka Potente is charged with saving her boyfriend from the wrath of his mob boss when a sack of cash goes walkabout. The result was perfect fitness training for Bourne.
Ghostwritten (1999)
A perfect primer, David Mitchell's first novel is almost as kaleidoscopic as Cloud Atlas. In each of its ten stories there's a character who appears in the next strand (think The Three Colours Trilogy or Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon) as deeper themes emerge. There are also foreshadowings of Cloud Atlas, with Luisa Rey and Timothy Cavendish both appearing and a mysterious comet-shaped birthmark involved.
The Matrix (1999)
Buoyed by the critical success of Bound, the pair set to work on an idea for a wildy ambitious future-tech sci-fi in which an ordinary Joe discovers all dark secrets of the universe, has a spiritual epiphany and kicks binary ass in bullet time like it had never been done before. It hadn't. It was called The Matrix and it made it blue pills everywhere weep.
Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer (2006)
Tykwer is no stranger to adapting much-loved novels, as this black take on Patrick Süskind's Perfume proves. Ben Whishaw – back again in Cloud Atlas – plays Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a low-born Frenchman who grows up aspiring to be Coco Chanel but ends up more like Hannibal Lecter. The period detail was so rich you could almost smell it. Thankfully, Smell-O-Vision isn't around anymore.
Number9dream (2001)
The Tokyo of Mitchell's second novel is part bebop cityscape, part metaphysical mysteryland scoured by 20 year-old student Eiji for clues of his dad's whereabouts. Like Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood, it's named after a song penned by John Lennon and offers a beautifully quirky osmosis of East and West.
The Animatrix (2003)
The Animatrix is nine anime shorts that the Wachowskis conceived as a means of stretching further into the world of the Matrix. They do exactly that, even if the effect can be occasionally be akin to swallowing great fistfuls of red pills and double-piking into the nearest rabbit hole. The Japanese and South Korean anime directors the pair assembled ensure that this rabbit hole goes deep.
The International Original Soundtrack (2009)
The film may have been a bit of a stinker, seemingly borrowing its plot from the minutes of a Barclays board meeting, but the soundtrack is a handy reminder that Tykwer's talents extend beyond the camera. Alongside Pale 3 pals Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil, his musical collaborators since the early '90s, he crafts a breezy, fresh soundtrack that's a lot better than the movie.
Black Swan Green (2006)
The most personal of Mitchell's novels, Black Swan Green is the semi-autobiographical story of Jason Taylor. He's a 13 year-old with a stammer whose escapades at his Worcestershire home are charted over the space of 13 months in 13 chapters. Cloud Atlas references come in the shape of Vyvyan Ayres's (Halle Berry) daughter, Eva van Crommelynck, and Robert Frobisher whose symphony is playing when Jason visits her house. Meta, eh?