Across the Universe is Wonderful

Rating: 10/10 (19 May 2010)

"Across the Universe" is a radiant, artistic, psychedelic and excellent experience that evokes a great period where peace, love, war and music walked side by side. With a story set between 1967 and 1968 and filled with musical and cultural references this is a fantastic film that really takes you back to that period, making you sing along with The Beatles classics performed by the great ensemble cast and singers like Bono and Joe Cocker.
The story follows the love story between Jude (Jim Sturgess), a poor English in America and Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) an upper class American girl. We also see the circle of friends of both characters such as Lucy's brother Max (Joe Anderson), the singer Sadie (Dana Fuchs), the guitarist JoJo (Martin Luther McCoy) and Prudence (T.V.Carpio). We join their reactions towards the many turbulent events around them such as the Vietnam war, the discovery of love, rock n'roll, art and many others. And they sing The Beatles songs.
I won't explain too much of the story and I'm only gonna write why it was a great film. Director Julie Taymor made a very captivating film about an era very similar like "Almost Famous" or "Hair". The way The Beatles's songs were used, or better saying, the context in which it was used was beautiful, magical, intelligent and worked very well. For instance when Jude is introduced to Max's friends and they sang "With a Little Help from My Friends" (great funny moment) or when the Max was enlisted by the Amry it starts to play "I Want You" and the Uncle Sam poster pointing at him. And of course the Beatles references (many songs couldn't been introduced here so there are cases when a character's name reminds you of a song or something said by a character like Jude's boss saying that things would look different when he was 64 years old) and rock references such as Jimi Hendrix (JoJo) and Janis Joplin (Sadie). It was a great mix of things.
In the beginning I thought the movie was becoming one of those musicals where you almost laugh at it, many of the songs wasn't good performed by the actors but when Joe Cocker appeared singing "Come Together" I was really in the mood of the film, and after that it was delightful to follow and at many times sing along almost all the songs. And I changed my mind about the whole thing (except for the performance of "I Want to Hold Your Hand", that really bothers me, the girl sings too much).
It is like a 2 hour video clip but it's a very good video clip. All actors are great, dramatically and performing the songs. Jim Sturgess what an inspiration...Great leading actor here and the chemistry between he and Evan Rachel Wood was amazing. There are few special appearances of Eddie Izzard (Mr. Kite), Dylan Baker, Bill Irwin, Logan Marshall-Green (unrecognizable as a protest leader) and Salma Hayek (who worked with Julie Taymor in "Frida", she plays a nurse in a musical scene).
Best moments: Bono singing "I am the Walrus"; the whole cast singing "Because"; the performance on the rooftop reminder of Abbey Road; Jude throwing Strawberries on the wall and the result of one of his art works; JoJo and Sadie electrifying performances on stage; Max's jokes; anyway everything was excellent here. Definitely a memorable film. 10/10