Across the Universe

Across the Universe is not a film made for all audiences. Quite contrarily, it’s the sort of film made almost exclusively for imaginative, pleased to be indulged folk with no holdups over narrative inconsistencies or fatally contrived plot devices as long as its all done in the name of no holds barred adventurous song and dance spectacle. I absolutely loved every strange, enthralling, and beautiful frame of this film but even that didn’t blindside me enough to wipe clean the fact that there’s really just a certain notch of perfection absent from this movie. As great as it is, it never quite pulls together all of its overwhelmingly potential-filled elements into the flawless, note-perfect musical of a generation it longs to be. I really wish it did, but it simply doesn’t.

What it does do is revive, recycle, and reinvent some of the most iconic Beatles music and set each within a loose love story narrative and even more importantly, the time period from which the music emerged. In this new format, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” plays as the paean of a doe-eyed fifties teen, “Let It Be” is a sorrowful yet optimistic civil rights anthem, and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” becomes the cry of Uncle Sam for more and more young men to draft into the throws of the Vietnam War. The music is performed entirely by the primary cast with added input from special guests Bono, Joe Cocker, Eddie Izzard, and Salma Hayek (in a brief cameo). Jim Sturgess stars as the angel-voice Limey, Jude, who comes to America in search of his long lost father and immediately gets swept up into the fun loving antics of a rebellious young Princeton student named Max (Joe Anderson) and falls instantly for Max’s sister, Lucy, (Evan Rachel Wood). These 3 characters become like pawns driven across the country and through endless desperation in an effort to make them symbolic of the “Beatles generation” who grew from sweetheart teens into impassioned anti-war renegades and finally tripped through the psychedelic seventies with enough mental clarity to conclude that “All You Need Is Love.”

Despite the fact that these highly manipulated characters can sometimes feel like stiff cogs in a ravishing machine, they have enough humanity to make us care about them generally. The film itself is a whirling, fantastical journey through the sensory playland of director Julie Taymor’s whimsical and stunning visual style as voiced by the most timeless music catalogue of a century. Where genuine humanity fits into it, I’m not really sure. What I can say is that its spirit is moving in spite of its flaws (and perhaps even a little bit because of them). What it lacks in narrative structure is overcome by a raw creative energy that keeps you interested and intoxicated even when all logic has ceased. It operates in grand swells and mood movements, tugging and tearing at its audience until its created the gut reaction it desires. Anyone with a hope of seeing a cohesive, pristine narrative need not apply. Anyone seeking an unforgettably unique cinematic experience is very much encouraged to take the plunge.

Grade: A-