Author: Emily Jensen
Think back—way back to the days when your head seemed bigger than your body and your mother dressed you in primary-colored overalls. The days when golden retrievers were terrifying and your two major food groups were peanut butter and jelly. Dwell in the memory of this golden era and, if you’re like most kids of baby boomer parents, you’ll recall your initial experience with the magic of the Beatles. It seems that everyone in our age bracket has loved the Beatles since childhood, a rare patch of common ground for our generation to stand on. From their earliest interpretations of the Liverpudlian Mersey beat movement to their revolutionary inclusion of sitar on Rubber Soul and psychedelic experimentation on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, it’s difficult to deny that the Fab Four were one of the best bands ever to grace the mainstream.
So when previews started circulating for a movie that would seek to interpret and recreate their melodic brilliance, it was hard not to be skeptical. The Beatles’ legacy is so deeply revered by so many that it must be handled with the utmost caution. With this in mind, Academy Award-nominated director Julie Taymour displays a deft near-mastery of Beatlesque sensibility in the onscreen musical Across the Universe.
The film, released in Los Angeles on September 21, crafts an elaborate tapestry of auditory and visual bliss atop a paper-thin plot. It is extraordinarily delightful for the senses, but you can check your brain at the door-this is strictly a musical in the most basic and traditional sense. The storyline poorly reflects the philosophical depth of the Beatles’ repertoire.
The story follows Liverpool dockworker Jude, who leaves a dreary 1960s Britain to seek his estranged father in New Jersey-and presumably, judging by his wistful pout, to find himself. Upon arrival, Jude meets the scruffy trouble-making Princeton dropout Max, with whom whose pristine sister Lucy he eventually, predictably, falls in love. Some acid is dropped, some songs are sung and suddenly the Vietnam War bursts from the background and consumes their lives-and the plot. For a movie whose main tagline is “All you need is love,” this film needlessly preoccupies itself with subplots that only scratch the surface of racial issues and the horrors of war. They’re worthy topics to be sure, but the film addresses them with superficial ambiguity and wastes energy that could have been used deepening the complexity of the love story between Jude and Lucy.
While it seems that the writers and director balked when it came to interpreting the essence of the Beatles’ music within an appropriate dialogue and complex plot, they more than make up for it in musical numbers, stunning choreography and superb cinematography. Every time the actors opened their mouths to sing, the film was suddenly and vibrantly perfect.
The opening scene creeps up on Jude hunched on the wet, windy shores of Liverpool, where he turns to look at the camera and queries in pitch-perfect a capella, “Is there anybody going to listen to my story, all about the girl who came to stay?” Soft strings join Jude as he sings the next few lines of “Girl,” and then the shot pans to the waves crashing in the ocean, where Lucy’s radiant face is reflected in the water.
From beginning to end, Across the Universe is visually astonishing. During the scenes where the characters are using drugs, the camera work and editing effects envelop the audience in the psychedelic experience. After the characters drink the pink punch at a party, the images imitate the drug-induced effects, with everything in the shot shimmering in neon. Later, the characters find themselves underwater in one of the most breathtaking scenes in the film.
The songs themselves are also astoundingly well-done. In one sublime standout, a cluster of characters lay intertwined in dewy grass after hitching a ride on the Beyond school bus (modeled after Ken Kesey’s Furthur bus that traveled across the country administering the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) and harmonize a glorious version of “Because” as the camera slowly spirals down to focus on Jude and Lucy.
Other memorable renditions include the sequence for “With A Little Help From My Friends,” a hysterical, surprisingly endearing frat boy anthem take on the classic that is a clear nod to the grittier Joe Cocker cover used as the theme song for The Wonder Years.
While some numbers fall flat at the expense of an overly kitschy reference (the excessively literal “Dear Prudence” is deployed to coax forlorn drifter Prudence out of the closet), overall it is the music and cinematography that make this film an incredible experience. Beatles fans, also known as the majority of the population, will thoroughly enjoy Across the Universe‘s skillful composition and gorgeous imagery, but should keep in mind that it is made more for their eyes and ears than their intellect.
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