Beatles Fame - 'Across The Universe'

Julie Taymor’s new film “Across The Universe” (Columbia & Revolution, 131 min.) paints a picture of a world without the members of the Fab Four ... almost. The group is gone, but the music remains, covered by a gang of friends who float in and out of the lives of two characters named (brace yourself now) Jude and Lucy as they blunder their way through the decade’s dose of sex, drugs, and rock & roll, and healthy side of “revolution.”

It’s hard to tell exactly what Taymor hoped to achieve with the film. If the answer is another example of beautiful lighting and cinematography, then “Across the Universe” would be a success. If she hoped to give viewers a headache by using more colors than a prism reflects light, once again the woman succeeds. If she wanted to demonstrate yet another example of her skill as a puppeteer (as if, after directing “Frida” and Broadway’s “The Lion King,” we needed it,) then she did an impressive, though perhaps poorly conceived, job. But if she wished to tell a story that seamlessly blends with the 31 Beatles songs she selected to accompany them, she has fallen short of her usual level of perfectionism.

Taymor, who co-wrote the film’s story, made a conscious decision to let the songs push the story, and the film suffers for that decision. The love story of Jude and Lucy should tie the other elements of the film together but it simply isn’t strong enough for the task. Almost nothing is done to further the plot in a cohesive or logical way. Several story lines are added only so Taymor could use particular songs. The puppet sequence in a circus tent set to “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” is such a cringe-worthy plot point, not for lack of talent, but of necessity. By the time you see a Greek Orthodox priest and Salma Hayek dancing in a hospital full of Vietnam War vets, the viewer has lost the ability to be surprised at – or care about – anything more the film has to offer.

The actors double as singers in the film, and while several of them show talent, they direct attention more to the new (and sometimes misguided) interpretations of the songs: “I Want To Hold Your Hand” as a love ballad from one cheerleader to another, “I Want You” sung by an Uncle Sam poster to members of the draft, and “I Am The Walrus” sung by Bono at what is meant to be a book-signing. Too many fleeting characters clog up the screen, story, and songs before disappearing as suddenly and as inexplicably as they arrived, usually to the audience’s disappointment. Conversely, too many characters you wish were fleeting stick around to the point of annoyance.

The numerous elements of the film – puppetry, music, color, what could laughingly be called plot – seem thrown together with little purpose, and they never live up to the promise Joe Cocker (who plays a bum, a pimp, and a “mad hippie” in the same four-and-a-half minute sequence) makes to “come together.” Sorry, Taymor, but it appears that the only people who can make a successful movie erected around Beatles songs are the Beatles. Like the song says, just let it be.



“Across The Universe” (2007)
Columbia Pictures, Revolution Studios
Directed by: Julie Taymor
Starring: Jim Sturgess, Evan Rachel Wood, Joe Anderson
Soundtrack available on Interscope Records