Across the Universe

Julie Taymor, USA, 2007
3 out of 4 stars

So, you all know that this is the musical based entirely upon songs by The Beatles, right? Plot-wise, there's not that much to tell. I feel like I saw this movie already in that network minseries from a few years back entitled The 60s, and in any case, the attempt to "tell the story of the 60s" in some impossibly all-encompassing manner seems pretty well-worn by now, so really all the film has going for it is the high concept. The characters are trite, the politics are verging upon the irresponsible, and the film really starts wobbling around the halfway mark when it tries to get serious.

I stand by all these objections, but for the most part, they occurred to me after the film was over. Maybe it's because I grew up watch musicals and MTV, and therefore have a tendency to imagine myself, while walking to or around campus, in some kind of music video, but I really felt captivated from this movie from the beginning. I don't really know how this movie rates against the best musicals, but it represents my idea of what a musical should be in that it does not shy away from including singing in real, lived-in spaces, as did, for instance, Chicago with its lame cut-aways to imaginary stage sets. To me, all the charm of the musical form is summed up right in that scene where people dance and sing in the bowling alley. It wasn't even one of my favorite numbers, but it looks like something I probably have, at least once, imagined myself.

So, I think one of the good aspects of the high concept is that it enabled the filmmakers to make (what I consider) a real musical. Another bonus is that they seem to feel the need to treat the Beatles songs well and give us, across the board, actors with strong vocal chops who deliver often beautiful renditions (I particularly enjoyed the songs by female lead Evan Rachel Wood and soul singer/guitarist Martin Luther McCoy, whom I've seen in concert with The Roots). I'm sure that not including any vocally-impaired stars helped contribute to the dismal box office, but it's probably the only way we can get a movie musical that actually sounds good (dismal reports are already coming in about the quality of the A-list cast's singing in Sweeney Todd). The only real objection I have here is that Jim Sturgess, while also a good singer, delivers vocal performances that, perhaps deliberately so, are too similar to that of originals (albeit with an obvious musical-theater flavoring). Such mimicry defeats the purpose of a reinvention, in my opinion.

Finally we come to the visual styling of Julie Taymor, which I found, here, to be more distracting and less essential than they were in the superior, if certainly less fun to watch, Titus. Taymor seems to know that her love story is, to put it lightly, far from original, but she tries to punch it up with awkwardly abstract set pieces that ultimately don't belong in the film.

If you weigh the pros and cons, the faults probably outnumber the virtues, but anyone who can't stop themselves from humming a tune here and there will probably appreciate this film at least on a visceral level.

Source: Sony 35mm print
16 Oct, 7 PM