Caffeinated Clint
“Across the Universe” is a lush, engaging tribute to the Beatles era, ripe with anti-war protest and chock-full of amazing music and eye-popping imagery
Joe Anderson, Evan Rachel Wood
Apart from being an Academy Award-nominated director, Julie Taymor (“Frida”) is no stranger to the theatre scene. In 1997 she directed a massive Walt Disney Company’s production of ‘The Lion King’ on Broadway, for which she also co-designed over a 100 costumes and masks of animals.
Now Taymor is delivering to audiences the best of both her worlds – warming up Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band for a musical that uses nothing but Beatles songs as the soundtrack for a love story set in the turbulent sixties.
“Across the Universe” is a lush, engaging tribute to the Beatles era, ripe with anti-war protest and chock-full of amazing music and eye-popping imagery. The film follows a dockworker named Jude (Jim Sturgess) who journeys to America in search of his estranged father, a janitor on Princeton’s campus.
While bunking in the maintenance room, Jude meets Maxwell (Joe Anderson), an open-minded Ivy League student with a taste for the visceral, and loathing for the student role he has been placed in.
Max gives up on his college career and decides to go to New York City, and as you might have guessed, Jude takes the journey with him. After assimilating themselves in their new environment, the two find themselves in the middle of free speech and civil rights struggles, the ever-evolving gritty world of rock and roll and the mind-enhancing drugs that come with it.
As Jude and Maxwell develop their friendship, Jude is introduced to Maxwell’s younger sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) – a sheltered high school student with bright eyes and aims to change the future. She moves to New York and lives with Jude and Max (among their other free-lovin’ friends).
As you might imagine Jude and Lucy fall in love, and when Maxwell is drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, everyone becomes involved in peace activism. “Across The Universe” is whimsical at first, light-hearted and over-the-top theatrical – but suddenly develops a gritty, worn exterior that takes us from the innocence of high schools and universities to the harsh realities of the Detroit race riots, the horrors of Vietnam and the civil injustice of our country in the sixties.
With well-known and forever-loved tracks like “Let It Be,” “With A Little Help From My Friends,” and “Hey Jude,” as well as 28 other Beatles tracks (covered by the film’s amazingly talented singers), “Across the Universe” is the ultimate musical experience.
Jim Sturgess, Evan Rachel Wood, and Joe Anderson shine like diamonds in the sky with their beautiful, somber takes on classics like “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Hold Me Tight” while other performers like Dana Fuchs and Joe Cocker provide worthy covers of “Helter Skelter” and “Come Together.
Speaking of Joe Cocker, there are several cameos in Taymor’s Universe from Selma Hayek and Bono to Eddie Izzard and Dylan Baker.
My only major gripe with the film is that it’s probably a half-hour too long. There are a couple sequences, including a tripped-out circus tent sing-a-long led by Mr. Kite (portrayed by Izzard) that seems disjointed and out of place with the rest of the film’s feel.
Overall this film is an amazing psychedelic trip (literally) through the sixties and a must-see for musical aficionados. Any lover of good music and stirring imagery would be well rewarded in seeing “Across the Universe,” and while you’re at it – do yourself a favor and pick up the deluxe soundtrack, it’s a must-have.
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Reviewer : Adam Frazier
