Across the Universe
Movie Review
Across the Universe
by Eric D. Snider
Grade: A-
Released: September 14, 2007
Directed by:
Cast:
More than anything else, "Across the Universe" is a testament to the power of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's songwriting skills. The film is a full-fledged musical, structured in the classic boy-meets-girl style, with all the lyrics coming from Beatles songs. What's extraordinary is that the words to these 40-year-old pop songs fit perfectly, no alterations necessary. The melodies, so beautiful in their effortless complexity, are rendered even more potent when they're put into the context of a love story. "All you need is love" always just seemed like a nice sentiment. Now it feels like an unassailable truth.
Yet despite being peppered with Beatles allusions both subtle and obvious, the film is not just a frivolous tribute to the Fab Four. It stands on its own as a uniquely artistic view of young love in the turbulent 1960s, with songs from that era that happen to fit the story and that also happen to have been written by Lennon and McCartney (and, OK, sometimes Harrison and Starr, too). It also benefits from director Julie Taymor's imagination and vision, which would have ensured a memorable, eye-catching product regardless of who provided the soundtrack.
Like the Beatles themselves, the film starts in the pubs of Liverpool and ends with a rooftop performance. In another sublime parallel, the songs and situations start simple and grow increasingly psychedelic and metaphor-heavy as the film progresses, with some parts halfway through that are completely whacked-out.
The boy in our story is Jude (Jim Sturgess), a young English working-class lad who shows up at Princeton in the mid-1960s in search of his father. On campus he meets Max (Joe Anderson), a privileged but roguish youth who takes Jude home with him for Thanksgiving -- and that's where Jude meets Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). She's Max's sister, a high school senior whose boyfriend is fighting in Vietnam. Jude and Lucy like each other, and when Max drops out of school and moves to New York to be a full-time slacker, Jude in tow, Lucy comes to stay with them.
Jude and Max share an apartment with a host of bohemian artists, including Sadie (Dana Fuchs), a rock singer, and JoJo (Martin Luther McCoy), a guitarist. Across the way is Prudence (T.V. Carpio), who is introduced to the group when she flees an abusive boyfriend by coming in through the bathroom window.
The story takes us deep into the Vietnam era, with Lucy caught up in the anti-war movement while Jude just wants to draw and paint and leave the revolution to someone else. Max gets drafted, and the sequence at the induction office is one of the film's surreal highlights: Huge Uncle Sam posters come to life, singing "I want you, I want you so bad" while square-jawed officers with creepy prosthetic faces do some heavily choreographed poking and prodding of the new draftees. It's a nightmare come alive, and a stylish representation of Max's terrified thoughts.
Taymor, whose Broadway version of "The Lion King" made her artistic talents famous, mostly keeps "Across the Universe" interesting without being overtly weird. Mostly. Bit by bit, the film becomes more artsy and strange, though never in a way that's off-putting. Still, it's not always necessary. An interlude with a hippie guru (U2's Bono) and a freakish circus ringleader named Mr. Kite (Eddie Izzard) doesn't add much to the story apart from flavoring, and the characters of Prudence, Sadie, and JoJo never amount to anything substantial.
In other instances, Taymor's exuberance (along with Daniel Ezralow's choreography) leads to dazzling sights like a squad of businessmen with briefcases dancing across the sidewalks while a bum played by Joe Cocker sings "Come Together."
But most of the singing is more simple and less theatrical than that. The bulk of the Beatles' catalog consists of love songs, after all, and this is essentially a love story. The normal practice for movie musicals is to pre-record the songs and have the actors lip-sync for the cameras, but here almost all of the singing was done live. The effect is subtle, but it's there; the songs feel less like soundtrack numbers and more like sincere, intimate expressions.
That's particularly true when it's Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgess singing to or about each other. Both have clear, pleasant singing voices, polished enough to be technically proficient but not so much that they sound sterile and over-produced. Their acting is quite up to par, too.
The very idea of "Across the Universe" is fraught with peril, as attempting to wedge pre-existing pop songs into a story often yields something ridiculous. (I am not eager to see the movie version of the ABBA tribute "Mamma Mia!" planned for next year.) Taymor (who shares story credit with the screenwriters, veteran British TV scribes Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais) wrangled with Revolution Studios head Joe Roth over her vision for the film before finally getting her way. So much could have gone wrong and turned this into a complete disaster. And yet here it is, an innovative, marvelously constructed musical full of heart, humor, and feelings. It's been a labor of love for Taymor, and we all know how important love is.
Grade: A-
Rated PG-13, scattered profanity, some partial nudity and mild sexuality, a little violence
2 hrs., 12 min.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
This work may not be transmitted via the Internet, nor reproduced in any other way, without written consent from Eric D. Snider.
This item has 24 comments
September 30, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Surprising -- I've seen nothing but mediocre reviews for this movie until now, so it's interesting to read your take on it. I'm not sure if I'll see it or not.
Either way, I'm not taking any kids to see it if it contains cattered profanity.
October 1, 2007 at 8:09 am
Those darn cats and their profanity!
October 1, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Love the Beatles, trust Eric, this one is a go!!!
October 2, 2007 at 8:50 am
I've thought from all the previews that this movie just looks creepy. It reminds me of the weird foreign films I used to do voice-overs for when I was living in England. Maybe it's all in your own experience and perspective whether you'd enjoy it or not. I love the Beatles, but not even Eric's glowing review makes me want to see this movie. I guess it's got too many weird connotations for me or something.
October 2, 2007 at 9:26 pm
I saw this movie yesterday and it blew me away... I was laughing crying, and just amazed at what I saw... I wasn't sure if I would love it or hate it going in, but it's brilliant. Frankly, if Julie Taymor made a movie of someone reading the phone book, I'd go see it. and by the way I thought the cameo appearances were great including that of Eddie Izzard, if anyone was born to play a ringmaster in a weird beatles musical, it's him.
Eric is right on the money, go see it!
October 4, 2007 at 2:35 am
"peppered with Beatles allusions" ha ha
October 4, 2007 at 4:29 pm
I thought this was a musical! Wow.
October 4, 2007 at 8:32 pm
#7: What part of the review led you to the belief that it's not a musical?
October 5, 2007 at 6:25 am
I'm excited to see it, and I think it's cool that all the characters' names are names mentioned in Beatles' songs.
October 6, 2007 at 4:49 pm
I've been looking forward to this for months and have listened to the soundtrack several times already, on my Ipod. It's great music, the Beatles stuff stands the test of time. It hasn't opened here yet but I hope by next weekend.
October 10, 2007 at 1:26 pm
I saw this film last night and much enjoyed it. I am struck by how the producer could find actors who have such pleasing voices. I heard several songs for the first time (which struck me as pretty unforgettable), and missed my favorite: "Here, There and Everywhere."
October 19, 2007 at 6:06 am
I had just voted this film an A- over at Box Office Mojo before reading Eric's accurate and fair review. This one is worth catching on the big screen for full enjoyment of the astounding colors in a few of the more dazzling scenes; the singing is also splendid. My extended comments on Across the Universe (written before I saw Eric's review) are in the AlaskaSteven blog at Tribe.net
November 8, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I agree so much with what eric had to say. I saw this movie and it took my breathe away. It was such a great movie. I love the beatles and for some people to say this ruined their rep, is wrong because this was a great movie with 'lots of color and imagination. I love this movie so much and it's now my favorite movie! thank you so much for giving a great and honest review with a good angle to it.
November 10, 2007 at 8:19 am
I saw this movie twice already and im going to see it again tonight. Its worth it its the best movie Ive ever seen i would see it again and again and agian and you get it ITS GREAT YOU HAVE TO SEE IT
November 13, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Sorry, Mr. Snider; although you're quite possibly my favorite movie critic and I hold your opinion in lofty regard, I must disagree with you most stridently on this one.
So Beatles tunes lend themselves seamlessly to a musical detailing socio-political events in the 1960s. No, really? They were only WRITTEN THEN. This film is a string of clichés, from boy-meets-girl to hippie-gets-drafted to cop-shoots-black-guy. It's pretentious and boring.
And what isn't clichéd is a horrible mess. The music ranges from mediocre to intolerable (read: "I Want to Hold Your Hand"), with the possible exception of "Let it Be." Entire characters—and, in the case of Bono's magical van ride to Cali, an entire plot segment—are there just to provide excuses to sing a particular tune (Prudence is the most glaring example, but Jojo fits the bill even if they never got around to "Get Back"). In fact, the only characters about whom we end up giving half a damn are Jude and Lucy, but only because they have a story and not because they aren't boring.
Honestly, this film was the worst time I've had at the movies in recent memory. Viewing it was embarrassing, like watching a streaker. The projector failed toward the end (three times, actually, which fortunately resulted in a free ticket) and for a good ten seconds I thought it was part of the movie. The technical difficulties would have been welcome if they had only made the movie disappear now and then and not also delayed the curtain.
November 17, 2007 at 9:03 am
What a great movie. It was a work of art, even if it was disturbing at times. The music WOW! The songs were done tastefully and show what these songs are classics.Thanks! It captured some of the emotion and feeling of the times as I remembered them. I can't wait to get the soundtrack, and the DVD when it comes out. I'm glad I saw it on the big screen.
November 30, 2007 at 3:28 am
I absolutely loved this movie. I sang along with every song, bought the sound track the next day & have continued to sing along. The reinterpratations of the classic Beatles songs are excellent. Julie Taymor has produced a cinematic treasure. A must see film for anyone who grew up with the Beatles, Vietnam or simply connects with Love.
December 8, 2007 at 12:49 am
I think most people are missing the point. There is so much to this movie on so many levels, from the characters to the references to other movies through plot, dialogue, and even sets, to the symbolism and allegory of the situations and characters themselves. Everybody's talking about Bono; hey, that's not Bono. That's Dennis Hopper's character from "Easy Rider," another quintessential sixties movie. Don't believe me? Look behind him as he is getting back on the bus: it's Peter Fonda's character in the stars and stripes outfit. Jerry Garcia is in the front row of the concert when Jojo and Sadie squabble. Jude's space in his father's "office?" That's right out of the bowels of the theatre where the Beatles play in "A Hard Day's Night." Yes, the chronology is all screwed up, but that gives us a scenic quote from Titanic: when Jude is drawing Lucy as she lies exposing her left breast. There are other things that are skewed: John and Paul both lost their mothers, but Jude, the "Paul" character, goes looking for his father. (He's really a melding of John and Paul: looks like Paul, but is an artist like John.) Who does he find? A Brian Epstein look-alike, who certainly was a surrogate father of sorts to them, at least in a business sense. The whole melding of John and Paul into one character who goes "on the road" is a reference to , well, "on the Road." It's even brought up at the Thanksgiving dinner table when Mom completes Dad's thought by saying Jack Kerouac's name. Speaking of Thanksgiving, what about the references to Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant?" When Max is talking about the physical and they are giving him ideas as to how to dodge the draft, someone says, "Tell them you're a homo; they don't take homos." That's so close to Guthrie's line: "They may think you're both fagots, and they won't take either of you." Joe Cocker, like Bono, is much too obvious; how about Jojo as Jimi Hendrix, and Sadie as Janis Joplin? Or better yet, Max as Claude Hooper Bukowski, the main character that gets drafted and sent to Nam in the Broadway musical "Hair?" Direct quote from that plot. Some have complained about the blatancy of the "she came in through the bathroom window" comment, or Prudence having to be coaxed "out of the closet" by the rest of the roommates. But that's balanced out with how very long we had to wait for someone to refer to Sadie as sexy. When it finally came, and then about the strawberry as her logo and not Sadie herself, I was so relieved to finally hear it. So many details to enjoy: the address of the building where the final rooftop concert took place? But of course: Number 9? Number 9? And why can't Lucy get to Jude in the end? Why are they separated by the huge void between the buildings? If Jude is Paul, then Lucy is really Linda, separated from him now by death, yet still a part of him. It goes on and on. Roger Ebert is the only other I have read who even begins to see the truth to this film. Go see it again and have some fun; you can hardly keep up with the images. Maybe one last symbol: did anyone else see the similarity in appearance between the SDS leader turned bomb maker who eventually blows himself up and...the young Bill Clinton? Has to be; Jude even pointed out that he surrounded himself with women...
January 9, 2008 at 10:42 am
@Jim..
Now that's a review.
I loved the film. As a photographer, I must conclude, it's a work of art.
Also about musical or not?
I believe the best quote from the main review is:
"the songs feel less like soundtrack numbers and more like sincere, intimate expressions"
The songs felt for me like they were written for this script. But history tells us that this not the case. That for me is the magic in this movie.
Kenneth
January 14, 2008 at 1:27 am
okay, so i live in the relativly small town of Springfield Missouri and we havent been fortunate enough to have the movie resleased to us but i have been dying to see it (especially with how much of a beatles fan i am). I love the fact that you enjoyed this movie because i think i will do the same!! i cant wait till it gets released here and until then, i hope yall know how jealous i am of all of you who have seen it!
January 26, 2008 at 4:23 pm
I saw this last night. I must say, the visuals impressed me, and the songs were amazing, powerful, and beautiful, especially I Want You (She's So Heavy) Which I found doubly profound as the daughter of a Veteran of Vietnam who died of Agent Orange exposure. But I thought that Prudence was a completely unnecessary character, and even though Sadie and JoJo were great singers/musicians, they didn't get much chance for character development. It was beautiful though, and introduced my younger sister and all her friends to the Beatles. But I liked Frida better.
May 5, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Wonderful, beautiful, and irresistably poignant and sincere. ?
July 10, 2009 at 12:38 am
My favorite part was the allusion to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. "Transcend the bull****" and "You're either on the bus, or off the bus". I'm reading the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test right now and that was awesome. Of course, he wasn't called Ken Kesey in the movie; none of the allusions were. He was Doctor Robert.
July 20, 2009 at 12:57 am
I'm curious: The rooftop concert looked so much like the Apple headquarters in Picadilly (seen in the "Let it Be" movie), that I'm wondering if it actually IS the same building. Does anyone know? By the way, I loved the show. I was completely uncritical. That's the advantage of not watching many movies. My tastes aren't jaded.