It's 1968. Young Liverpool dockworker Jude (Jim Sturgess) lives with his single mother Martha before sailing across the Atlantic to find his long-lost father, who was an American soldier stationed in England during the war. After finally meeting him at Columbia University where he teaches, Jude meets sibling radicals Max (Joe Anderson) and Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), who take him in. Before long, of course, Jude and Lucy are an item, Max is conscripted to Vietnam and they all dive right into the anti-war movement in New York City's Greenwich Village, where they meet such colourful characters as Janis Joplinesque singer Sadie (Dana Fuchs), Jimi Hendrixesque guitarist Jojo (Martin Luther McCoy), closet lesbian Prudence (T.V. Carpio) and protest rally leader Paco (Logan Marshall-Green). But in the face of many powerful forces (no pun intended), Jude and Lucy must fight all the way to stay together and find some peace in their mad little part of the world.
Across the Universe is a deep line in the sand and I understand why, but from the moment I first saw it I was enchanted. I've never really cared about this movie's plot because director Julie Taymor and writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais weave it very carefully around the immortal songs of the Beatles, which the whole cast (including cameos by Bono, Joe Cocker and Salma Hayek among others) do justice to, and the rather cliched central romance I think feels relatable nonetheless. Taymor, Clement and La Frenais collectively evoke the aura of the late '60s so accurately and affectionately because that really was their era (although there are some anachronisms; the Let It Be sequence most notably), and they don't shy away from much of the counterculture's dark side either. Taymor particularly revels in laying plenty of very fitting psychedelic visuals over the musical sequences without jarring us, and composer (and Taymor's husband) Elliot Goldenthal competently meshes them together with his own interludes. There's also some delicious sets and costumes, detailed cinematography and sharp editing to maintain the pace.
Sturgess makes an amiable hero and smartly lets us gradually see all his layers, as does Anderson as the more caustic and rebellious Max, but the MVP here is Wood who's beautifully delicate and balanced in a role that could quite easily have been overplayed. All the main characters are named for characters in Beatles tunes, too. But if I'm honest, I love this film most of all because I've long had a real soft spot for its era: the worldwide youth awakening, the political upheavals and of course, the art in general. (Not the clothes or psychotropic substances, though.) And Across the Universe takes you there and, if you're like me, will make you want to stay.
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