A stunning, original and charming musical

Rating: 9/10 (2 July 2009)

During this decade, something that I have noticed is the lack of proper and serious musicals. One of my personal favorites, "Rent" was a nice adaptation of the play but the whole merit was Jonathan Larson's (R.I.P.) "Mamma Mia!" was very amusing to watch, and I kept singing Abba songs for weeks. But, when the purpose of the movie is to maintain catchy songs that already existed, along with the image of the scene in your brain, "Across the Universe" wins the jackpot. Before watching this movie, my only memories of the Beatles' songs were those of Mom's Day Festival at elementary school, singing "Obladi-Oblada" in front of a small auditorium, shaking like I was in the Antarctica when I saw everyone was looking at us. Those certainly weren't good memories. "Across..." made me a Beatles' fanatic, and still now, 2 years later, when I listen to "Come Together" I remember my favorite scene of the entire film: JoJo arriving at New York, while executives, bums, pimps and prostitutes were singing and dancing. That is the whole credit of Taymor's masterpiece: take old Beatles song that were already famous and make you remember them in a completely different context. I'll never listen to "I Want You" without seeing Uncle Sam pointing at me and singing it. The film is stunning from the aesthetic point of view, original because of the whole construction of the storyline based on the songs and charming because of its mood.
****1/2 out of *****