Across the Universe **** (2007, Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, Joe Anderson, T V Carpio) – Classic Movie Review 10,355

Director Julie Taymor’s glorious 2007 musical romantic drama film Across the Universe incorporates 33 compositions originally written by members of the Beatles, and stars Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, Joe Anderson, T V Carpio Dana Fuchs and Martin Luther McCoy in characters inspired by Beatles’ song titles and lyrics. What a gift to a film-maker to have the rights to these incredible songs! But that’s just a start. What to do with them?, there’s the thing, that’s when the trouble starts.

The songs fell into the right hands in 2007. The screenplay by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (based on an original story by Taymor, Clement and La Frenais) works a treat, and the cast, visuals, choreography and singing are astounding. This is a lovely, often stunning, special film.

With the songs written from 1962 to 1969 by the Beatles (29 of them by John Lennon and Paul McCartney), Across The Universe tells a fictional love story between the upper-class American girl Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) and the poor Liverpudlian artist Jude (Jim Sturgess) set against the backdrop of the same 1960s era of anti-war protest, the struggle for free speech and civil rights, mind exploration and rock ‘n’ roll.

Maybe if Taymor had cast household name stars, she might have had a hit on her hands. But this is no criticism of her cast. There is a lot of weight on the shoulders of Wood and Sturgess but they are up for it. And this is no criticism of Taymor. The iconic Beatles’ songs are extremely well respected and inventively used, often in an inspired way that gets the blood surging.

There are also cameo appearances are made by Bono, Eddie Izzard, Joe Cocker and Salma Hayek.

Julie Taymor directs Anthony Hopkins in Titus (1999).

The soundtrack also features an original score composed by her partner Elliot Goldenthal, who worked on her previous films Titus and Frida.

It cost a lot – $70.8 million – and took relatively little $29.6 million, after some grudging reviews complaining of a clichéd love story and thinly written characters – well they can’t have seen many musicals, can they? In any case, they have missed the point. Hopefully, the studio got some of their money back from the music sales since Interscope Records have released three variations of the soundtrack – a standard edition and two deluxe editions. But the music without the psychedelic visuals would go for little. For a sound only experience, nothing beats the original tracks.

Revolution Studios chairman Joe Roth was concerned with the length of the film at 133 minutes and tested a sneak preview of a shortened version without informing Taymor. After several months of dispute, Taymor’s version was reinstated as the released version, postponed from 2006 to September 14, 2007 after its world premiere on September 10, 2007, at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Taymor screened her film for McCartney. ‘At the end of the screening, I did the classic thing,’ she recalled. ‘I asked him, “Was there anything you didn’t like?” He said, ‘What’s not to like?’ Roger Ebert was one critic among the snipers who agreed, calling it ‘an audacious marriage of cutting-edge visual techniques, heart-warming performances, 1960s history and the Beatles songbook’.

However, you could ask, were enough people ever going to be interested in the Beatles and the Sixties in 2007, especially enough in the young cinema-going age group, to make Across the Universe a box-office hit? It ended up like the 1979 movie of Hair, out of time, and short of fans and paying customers. Is Across the Universe even a good title? Are the stars appealing enough to enough people? Is the film too long after all?

Does it matter? Taymor got to make her movie her way and somehow protected her vision. If her film career is small, she can go back to the theatre. She won two Tony awards (for Direction and Costume Design) in 1998 for the Broadway production of The Lion King.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,355

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