Cloud Atlas (2012)

The story jumps between eras until each storyline eventually resolves, spanning hundreds of years. Writings from characters in prior storylines are found in future storylines. Characters appear to recur in each era, but change relationships to each other. Slaves or abusers often change roles, suggesting reincarnation or other connection between souls through the ages. In the Chatham Islands, 1849, American lawyer Adam Ewing witnesses the whipping of Autua, an enslaved Moriori man. Autua stows away on Ewing’s ship and persuades him to advocate for Autua to join the crew as a free man.

Autua saves Ewing’s life before his doctor, Henry Goose, can poison him and steal his gold under the guise of treating him for a parasitic worm. In San Francisco, Ewing and his wife denounce her father’s complicity in slavery and leave to join the abolition movement. In 1936, English composer Robert Frobisher finds work as an amanuensis to aging composer Vyvyan Ayrs, allowing Frobisher to compose his own masterpiece, “The Cloud Atlas Sextet”. Frobisher reads from Ewing’s journal among the books at Ayrs’s mansion. Ayrs demands credit for the sextet and threatens to expose Frobisher’s bisexuality if he refuses. Frobisher shoots and wounds Ayrs and goes into hiding. He finishes the sextet and shoots himself before his lover Rufus Sixsmith arrives.