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.
4 out
of 5
Across the
Universe Australian release: 1st November,
2007 Cast: Joe Anderson, Evan Rachel Wood Director: Julie Taymor
Website:Click
here.
