Eleanor Reviews

**** ‘Cloud Atlas’ tells the story of people who meet again and again throughout eternity. The situations in which they meet are always different, but the feelings felt for one another are always the same. I have never read the book, but I had heard what it was about and when I heard that it was to be directed, I wasn’t sure how it would translate from page to screen. In the case of the film, the same actors (an impressive cast with the likes of Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving and Ben Whishaw to name but a few) are used in each story thread, changing sex and appearance with the use of heavy prosthetics. In each story, a different actor takes on the role of the protagonist, but they come into contact with characters that they have met before or are connected to in the future.   With so many different story-threads, some will undoubtedly be better than others. The story in which Jim Broadbent plays a publicist thrust into a care-home by his brother is truly

**** Fresh off the back of Academy Award success for ‘The Hurt Locker’, Kathryn Bigelow returns to take on the contemporary story for the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Everyone, therefore, knows how this film will end, but yet that doesn’t matter. Using key dates from the last ten years, Bigelow builds the tension well, focusing on the emotional journey of C.I.A agent Maya (Jessica Chastain) throughout the film. The opening sequence is harrowing. The black screen reads ‘September 11, 2001’ and following the fade of the text is the sound of the phone calls made to family members and emergency services from those trapped in the towers. After this opening, everyone in the cinema auditorium was silent. This sets the tone for the rest of the film, and also reminds us of the shock the world was left in after these events. The use of soundtrack is minimal - instead we are buffeted by the sounds of single explosions and gunshots, making the set pieces visceral and almost disturbing. T