Cloud Atlas

[devohoneybee]

Can anyone point me to any writing about Cloud Atlas and it's treatment of gay characters?

I'm late to viewing -- it's airing on HBO this week. And... ARGH. I've only seen the movie. Don't know if the book is different.

Comments

[liviapenn]

I can't find it now, but there was one essay/review that I read (I can't even remember now if it was on a movie review blog, or LJ/DW) that pointed out that in the movie, several new het relationships were created, and the already-existing ones were made a lot more romantic than they were in the book, and the already-romantic ones were made a lot happier and fluffier... which makes the one Tragic Gay Pairing stand out a *lot* more strongly than it does in the book. I don't know how many spoilers you want, but (for instance)...

-- the movie adds the Susan Sarandon character as the love interest/happy ending for Timothy Cavendish. There's no love interest in the book.

-- There's no big romantic scene of Adam Ewing getting back to his wife in the books. She doesn't appear at all.

-- Meronym & Zachry don't get together in the book. He narrates the story to his kids/grandkids, but they never met Meronym so they aren't sure if it's true or not.

-- Somni-451/Hae-Joo in the movie comes across as super romantic/true love. In the book it's more complicated, and there's a lot less Action Movie Hero Hae-Joo and a lot more about Somni and her thoughts and her journey. (I was really annoyed by how much of her segment was future car chases and action scenes.) And specifically about their relationship-- in the book, they have sex basically out of emotional shock, *after* they go to the slaughterhouse and see all the other clones being killed. To move that scene earlier, before the revelation, changes the meaning to romance/love instead of desperation/hopelessness, and makes their relationship totally different. So I wasn't a fan of that.

-- And the whole Vyvyan/Frobisher creepy advance/rejection thing is not in the book. In fact, Frobisher sleeps with Jocasta, Vyvyan's wife (it's implied, she seduces him because she's jealous of how much her husband cares about him.)

Sooo..... I read the book first, and I did like the movie a lot more than I thought I would... and I feel like given the complexity of the book, the movie writers probably felt like they *had* to simplify a lot of the relationships and tie up all the stories with nice neat predictable bows... but I think they went too far in some places, and the story would be better if it had been messier and more complicated.

[devohoneybee]

Thank you SO MUCH for this -- it's very good to hear and completely matches my sense of the happy het endings as being pasted on. The Susan Sarandon character for Cavendish particularly just comes out of nowhere -- he's such a weasely little man, it's hard to imagine her wanting to be with him. Meronym and Zachry had some chemistry, but the romance again took me by surprise. I felt their connection was much more about having a larger vision for saving their people than about personal romance. And I am so sorry not to have seen more of Somnni-451's journey to selfhood. To have her end on "I will love him forever" really detracts, I think, from the importance of her character and her journey. Knowing those het-happy endings were added mitigates somewhat the Tragic Gay, but I still don't like it. Based on your notes, though, I'm willing to give the book a chance now. Thanks so much for commenting.

[liviapenn]

Yeah, I also wondered if the addition of the Timothy Cavendish love interest and Adam Ewing's wife was a way of giving the actresses more parts to play and just emphasizing that ALL these souls are connected throughout time... But, it really comes across more like "this ONE COUPLE is connected across time" which definitely over-simplifies the stories in the book.

(And if you liked Somni in the movie, you should DEFINITELY at least read her parts of the book-- it's so much harsher and sadder, but also a lot more slowly paced and just... better.)