Across The Universe

First confession: I'm not a fan of musicals. Its just a bit too bizarre having people express how they feel in song. To quote the Robot Devil from Futurama "Your lyrics lack subtlety. You can't just have characters announce how they feel. That makes me feel angry!"

Second confession: I've never been a huge Beatles fan. I know someone is clutching their heart in pain from the very implication.

After having said all that, I do find it odd that I rather enjoyed Julie Taymor's latest film Across the Universe, considering it is a musical Beatles film. The film follows Jude as he travels to America from Britain, meets and befriends Max and falls in love with Max's sister Lucy. The time is the sixties and we watch Jude live through this turbulent time in American history. There are a few side plots involving other characters but it is mainly about Jude. And despite the straightforward explanation its a tad more complicated than that, since the story is told in short bits centered around one Beatles song or another.

On the story side I say this. There was something interesting about Jude. I don't know if it was how Jim Sturgess played him or how the character was written. But I like Jude, I want to know what happens to Jude truth be told at times I wish this had been a more traditional film that followed Jude but I don't want one to think I did not enjoy the music elements, because I did. On the music side, the songs were largely the big hits that everyone can recognize such as "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "Hey Jude."

The scenes range from scenes performed on a stage by a band to in scene dance numbers to the psychedelic. At times there was perhaps an obvious clash of imagery with lyrics but I still thought they were fantastic. The combination of a Civil Rights riot being broken up by national guard soldiers while "Let It Be" played was memorable. And when Jude sings "Revolution" in a protest meeting house, I'll be honest I had a new appreciation for that song.

At times Taymor reshapes songs into new meanings such as making "I Want To Hold Your Hand" into a sapphic ballad which I presume was not its original intent. But again, not a Beatles savant. It doesn't always work, I was pretty bored by the imagery of the psychedelic scenes but in the end it was just pleasant. It actually made me wonder what this film might have been like if rather than restricting herself to the Beatles, Taymor had aloud it to be a musical of set pieces from all the great 60s bands. Still, Taymor managed pretty well with just the Beatles songs.