Film

Cloud Atlas (2012)

Director: Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski

Synopsis

With a storyline which pretty much defines ‘unfilmable’, David ‘no, not the funny one’ Mitchell’s novel is being adapted for the screen largely, it seems, because lots of people liked it, and not because it’s a particularly good idea. Told in seven loosely connected sections which run the gamut from historical drama through modern realism to distant sci-fi, this is a tale so vast it’s taken three writer-directors to bring it to the screen: Tom Tykwer, the German director whose career since his breakthrough smash ‘Run Lola Run’ has been patchy at best, and the erstwhile Wachowski Brothers, Andy and Lana (who used to be called Larry), makers of ‘The Matrix’. The cast is equally sprawling, with Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent and many others all signing up. Shooting is already underway at Babelsburg Studios in Germany – but we can’t even begin to imagine what the final product will look like.