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It’s rare that you walk into a new musical already singing its songs. But what those songs are part of the framework of pop music, it’s almost expected. Herein lies the challenge for Across the Universe, a film that leans heavily on the audience’s adoration of the Beatles and nostalgia for the era that produced them. It’s an ambitious effort, roping together more than 30 of the Fab Four’s best, and more often than not, it successfully translates the songs it chooses.
The story focuses on Jude (Jim Sturgess), a Liverpool native who crosses the pond to find his American father and to lift himself out of the doldrums of his everyday in England. He finds Dad, a janitor at Princeton, which leads him to Max (Joe Anderson), a student there who welcomes friends more readily than his studies. Through Max, Jude meets Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), his friend’s sister whose boyfriend, we find, dies in Vietnam. Jude falls for her, and when he and Max move to Manhattan to escape adulthood responsibility, she isn’t far behind. The trio spend time living with Sadie (Dana Fuchs), an ersatz Janis Joplin; Jo Jo (Martin Luther), a faux-Hendrix lifted from the Detroit riots; and Prudence (T.V. Carpio), a lesbian cheerleader who runs to New York to escape her own identity.
When Max gets drafted, the characters trek across the country as part of the anti-war movement, during which they meet acid trippers, crazy activists, and Bono and Joe Cocker. When Lucy’s peace efforts become too intense for Jude’s under-the-government’s-radar status, it puts strain on their budding relationship.
Sturgess is far and away the brightest star in the movie, and his numbers are the most enjoyable: when he first meets Lucy, he sings “I’ve Just Seen a Face” while gleefully dancing through a bowling alley, and his “Revolution,” sung at a time when Lucy’s activism is at its most frustrating, is a brilliantly executed translation of the song. Wood, as a third focus in the film, also excels, her emotional investment showing in “If I Fell,” a conversation with herself about falling for Jude.
The film holds a casual relationship with the drug culture of the 1960s, and more than once it slips into a trippy haze; these diversions, while nice pieces of art, derail the plot. Other times, the tightly choreographed, heavily costumed numbers like “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” set to Max’s day at the draft office, work quite well.
Your overall enjoyment of Across the Universe is heavily reliant on your love for the songs included and your tolerance of adaptations. Three of my four favorite Beatles’ tunes (“Revolution,” “Blackbird,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”) were included, and so I walked out of the movie quite happy. If you can’t find songs in the soundtrack that you’re partial towards, you may experience a longer movie than me.
Rating: * * * 1/2 of 5
Soundtrack: * * * * of 5
great article. great movie. if you love the beatles, you MUST see it!!