feel good musical

Rating: 10/10 (7 August 2019)

Across the Universe is a musical that claims to not be based in politics and yet the political undertone of the era it takes place in and the current one is in its very essence political. The story focuses around a handful of main characters and side characters. There's Jude (Jim Sturgess), a Liverpudlian who is the son of a single mom and a dad who came and went with the war. Jude sets out on a mission to find his absent father living somewhere on the East Coast of the United States. Along the way he meets Max (Joe Anderson) and his little sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). Max is a student at the university that Jude's father is employed through. By chance of fate, Jude saves Max from a group of rampaging students and the two strike up friendship. Max invites Jude back to his family's home for Thanksgiving where Jude meets Lucy, Max's younger sister. This would be the beginning of Jude and Lucy's love affair. Max drops the bomb on his family at dinner that he plans on dropping out of school and moving to New York. Much to the disdain of his family, Jude and Max leave the next day for the city in search of an apartment. In their search they meet Sadie (Dana Fuchs) their soon to be landlord. Throughout the movie other characters come into the picture. Prudence (T.V. Carpio), Jo-Jo (Martin Luther McCoy) and Dr. Robert (Bono) are added to the mix.
The theme of the movie being love is the most important thing is really highlighted by the fact that all of the music is from the Beatles catalog. The ending song is "All You Need Is Love" sung by Jude to Lucy as an apology for the way things had ended between them. The dramatic effect of the Antiwar movement in relation to the Vietnam war going on in the background of the movie gives a palpable feel to the sort of desperate love that Jude and Lucy share. Both characters get so caught up in their own separate lives and begin to want more that they get sidetracked from what brought them together in the first place. This sort of theme reminds me of Moulin Rouge.
The camera angles and shots used to film the movie really helps to cement in the viewers mind when and where this story is taking place. The production team did an excellent job with the set and showing how time and the story move through the early to mid 1960's with the flower power and free love movement and then the progression into the highly politicized years of the late 1960's into the 1970's. Then obviously the music plays a huge part in the telling of the story as well. The movement through the Beatles repertoire of music starts in their early years with sweet simple songs like "I Want To Hold Your Hand" to songs that give a much more chaotic feel like "Helter Skelter".
The story of Across the Universe focuses on a group of people who come together under different circumstances and try to live and survive the turbulent years of the Vietnam War. They are an insular group affected largely by what is happening around them. It takes them all separating and scattering to realize the thing that brought them together, love, is the most important thing they need.