Unoriginal and uneven but dazzlingly beautiful and unique

Rating: 7/10 (2 November 2007)

"Is there anybody going to listen to my story all about the girl who came to stay?" Julie Taymor's ambitious Beatles musical opens with her main character crooning this classic Beatles tune in a sad, melancholy tone longing for his love, quite reminiscent of Ewan McGregor's crooning David Bowie's "Nature Boy" longing for his love. The similarities are hard to miss, and this one song alone effectively sums up my whole opinion on the film, which is a series of parallel conflicts and contradictions that somehow all work in the end.
On the one hand, Taymor's movie has many flaws. It is very simplistic and although it deals with large political and universal themes of the time it portrays, it doesn't really bring anything new to the table. We've seen the whole hippy-getting-drafted-to-Vietnam tale in Hair, and we've seen the all-you-need-is-love theme in Moulin Rouge, which Taymor's picture reminded me of greatly. The story at its core is one of utmost simplicity: boy meets girl on the background of 1960's America political upset. The characters themselves are paper thin, each having about one or two identifying characteristics and one very straightforward character arc, and nothing more.
But Taymor's work also delivers such immense beauty and brilliance in other fields that the two natures of the film overlap each other. As simple as it is, the epic boy-meets-girl tale outstandingly works on both an entertainment and on an emotional level. Once we reach the film's finale, we do feel for the characters and we are moved by their final gestures of ultimate love, despite their being thin and underdeveloped.
But the film's true beauty lies in its visual and musical styles. Visually, the film is an accomplishment of unreachable levels. I haven't the slightest idea where Taymor drew her visual style from, as it is indescribably, remarkably beautiful and utterly original and never been seen before. Her film contains such downright amazing imagery, such as ocean waves clashing juxtaposed with protesting citizens clashing into walls of police forces, an incredible underwater sequence, a New York loft apartment becoming the sky, soldiers carrying the Statue of Liberty through a miniature Vietnam jungle (singing "She's So Heavy" while doing so, no less), and five Salma Hayek army field nurses. The film is, no doubt about it, a sight to behold. But it's not just the sights that make this film such a unique beauty. It's also the sounds.
For the Beatles' song adaptations, I truly and honestly salute Taymor and her crew. In this film she has created some absolutely exceptional productions. Naturally, the film's most beautiful, touching, poignant and best scenes are the ones involving the musical numbers. It's not just the songs, it's the entire scenes Taymor crafts around them that don't just feature the song  they embody the song. And being a die-hard fan of The Beatles' music, it was just these parts featuring their tunes that were the most special for me. There are 33 Beatles numbers throughout the whole film, but a few truly stood out for me. "I Want to Hold Your Hand", which was consummately transformed from an innocent song about young love to a sad, melancholy tune of unrequited love without changing the lyrics whatsoever; "Get By with a Little Help from my Friends", which features the Ivy League gang and Jude ransacking and running wild around Princeton; "I've Just Seen A Face", as Jude sees Lucy for the first time; "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", featuring Max arriving to the drafting office and striking imagery of soldiers trudging through a miniature Vietnam jungle carrying the weight of the Statue of Liberty on their backs; "Strawberry Fields Forever", as Jude spirals down into frustration while bleeding strawberries are pinned to his wall; "Happiness is a Warm Gun", "Hey Jude", "Because", and of course "All You Need is Love" are my favourites.
After I first saw the film, I wasn't entirely sure what to think, as my thoughts were so conflicting and contradicting. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it is a lot more complex than just a simple love story. It is in the simplicity that lies the key. The film isn't just a film that draws inspiration from and features The Beatles' songs. It breathes them; the songs literally embody the film. They are one and the same, drawing from one another. Have The Beatles' songs ever featured in-depth and intricate characters, or have they always been about simple, universal, undisputed love, especially their old works? Also, notice how the film begins with their older songs  "Girl", "I Want To Hold your Hand", "Hold Me Tight", "All My Loving", "I've Just Seen a Face"; in the middle are the psychedelic songs  "I am the Walrus", "The Benefit of Mr. Kite"; and in the end their later works  "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Hey Jude", "All You Need is Love". The film forms an arc similar to The Beatles' discography, and I don't think it is by chance.
Ultimately, with Across the Universe, Julie Taymor creates a piece of film-making that simultaneously draws from many other sources before it such as Hair and Moulin Rouge, but also exists as a totally original and unique piece of art. Although Taymor's characters can be described as rather flat, we still do feel for them and by the film's finale are entirely emotionally engaged with them. The musical adaptations are downright incredible, absolutely beautiful and truly a revelation, and Taymor's cast of unknowns delivers incredibly well. The film doesn't always work. Whenever Taymor trails off and loses focus from her main plot line, the film can become rather tedious; the scenes with Bono and Eddie Izzard are particularly irritating. But on a whole, this is an ambitious, beautiful achievement in the movie musical genre with its ups, downs and contradictions but that ultimately works.