If you choose to slip into the film's phantasmagoric and stunningly beautiful aesthetic, Across the Universe will transport you to a trippy 1960s dreamscape. Marinated in 33 songs by the Beatles, the film serves as both a musical vehicle and visual collaborator. The soundtrack, infused with its own historical sentimentality - think counter-culture, Vietnam, and LSD - guides the movie's plot, characters and cinematography in a visual poetry that is distinctly its own.
Directed by Broadway veteran and Tony-winner Julie Taymor (The Lion King), the movie is a quintessential '60s fairytale. Following the stories of young lovers against the backdrop of a war-torn, drug-infused, racially segregated generation, the plot doesn't offer anything new. Indeed, even the sharp dialogue can't save the characters from becoming familiar archetypes. The protagonist, Jude (Jim Sturgess), is a young, attractive, and courageously artistic Brit who goes to America in search of his father. Somewhere down the predictable line, he befriends Princeton dropout Max (Joe Anderson) and falls in love with the suburban-sheltered Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). True to the story's lyrical foundation, Jude does let her into his heart, Max literally holds a silver hammer, and Lucy eventually finds herself in the sky with kaleidoscope eyes.
Yet Universe is more than a series of passionate music videos interspersed with contextual discourse. It is the work of an artistic visionary, with Taymor embracing her medium in all its glory and conventions. She imaginatively paints her film with lush surrealism, soulful acting, and a temporal setting ripe with relevant political commentary. Though the story may have been told before, it has never been told like this.
