Chaotic, but beautiful

Rating: 8/10 (23 November 2007)

Julie Taymor was not shy about saying there wasn't much dialogue in the film. There is a share of dialogue, but mostly to transition to the next musical scene - no large bodies of text or academy award winning speeches. This is a musical to its very core. It has a lot of ideas and there's always a lot going on. Most of it works.
The 90s onward have been cursed with jukebox musicals, using an artist's songbook for the story. While Across the Universe does this, it doesn't spin some hackneyed Vegas style musical together and instead uses the Beatles songbook very appropriately, detailing lovelorn tales, drugs, and the ever so political decade of the sixties.
So it shouldn't surprise anyone that while the songs are used mostly to tell a love story of Lucy and Jude, the plot plays merely a supporting role to the images and performances that the Beatles songs inspire. The ones that stuck out to me were "She's So Heavy" which was transformed into a nightmarish image of individuals reporting for the draft and "Strawberry Fields Forever," offering perhaps the best narrative portion of the film were the two male protagonists use it as a vehicle to state their conflicts. It functions well on a dramatic and aesthetic level.
But with all the wealth of ideas, there are a couple missteps. The amount of characters can be overwhelming. It mostly works, but Prudence could've easily been excised from the script, as she is merely a subplot and her take on "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" comes off as unintentionally funny.
My only other complaint is that a little too much time is spent on some "Drug tripping" sequences. While it's appropriate to the times, it seems more like a way for Taymor to do more visual work, which is fine because the scenes look fantastic.
And I guess that's what it boils down to. The performances and visuals stand out so much in this film that it's hard not to recommend even with the chaotic overflow of characters, subplots and sometimes bizarre imagery. It's a feast for the senses and thoroughly enjoyable.