Friday night movie night. I was in the City for a wedding on Saturday night at the Bronx Zoo. A dear friend from London was staying with us in New York, so we ordered some Indian food, and I suggested we watch Julie Taymor's Across The Universe (2007). It had been years since I had seen it, and our guest didn't know it at all. We've watched the film countless times with our two children; they grew up with it. Being New Yorkers, it still resonates with us. A good chunk of the movie takes place in the West Village. Some critics hated the film, and it flopped at the box office. And yes, the first half is a tad predictable, but don't let that spoil your enjoyment. Some of the dance/music sequences are quite clever. And, when our kids were younger, they loved the straightforward UK-boy-falls-in-love-with-American-girl narrative and especially the way director Julie Taymor integrated the actors' real singing voices into the timeless music of The Beatles. Not to mention, the sets, costumes, giant puppets, and the choreography are all memorable.
The obvious sell is using the Beatles' songs to sell the narrative, and it does so quite effectively. There are only 30 minutes of dialogue, and the rest is made up of 33 Beatles songs. Each song acts as a music video. Kudos to T-Bone Burnett and Elliot Goldenthal (who also scored original music for the film) for arranging and reimagining them in various settings as the actors sang the songs. Taymor insisted her actors (including U2's Bono as psychedelic Dr. Robert) perform their songs live, even during the underwater sequences.
As stated, The Beatles' music is the foundation for a romantic story set in the 1960s, delving into love, war, and peace. The plot revolves around two young lovers, Jude (Jim Sturgess), a Liverpool shipbuilder embarking on a journey to find his American father, and Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), a New Jersey-based young woman Jude falls in love with. Jude first meets Max (Joe Anderson), a slacker college student at Princeton and older brother of Lucy, as well as other quirky characters, as the film unfurls. However, their relationship is put to the test by the social upheaval brought on by the Vietnam War. Coincidently, the bass player in my band is married to blues rocker Dana Fuchs, who plays Sadie, the live-in landlady to Max, Jude, her guitar player/boyfriend JoJo (Martin Luther McCoy), and runaway Prudence (T.V. Carpio).
Twenty-five of the vocal tracks are performed by one or more of the six lead cast members. Bono, Eddie Izzard, Salma Hayek, and Joe Cocker sing four songs in cameo roles. But, the most poignant, soul-stirring music moment is the gospel version of "Let It Be," sung by supporting cast members Carol Woods and Timothy T. Mitchum. With the backdrop of a young soldier's death in Vietnam and a child's murder in Detroit by excessive police violence, it remains one of my favorite interpretations of a Beatles song.
Even if you disliked the movie when it was released in 2007, I encourage you to watch it again. Critics be damned, it still holds up, and I enjoyed it even more than the last time I watched it. And, if you need a further endorsement, Paul McCartney and Ringo loved it.
Here’s the entire soundtrack for you to enjoy:
Would take "Across the Universe" over "Yesterday" ANY day.