Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe is a musical that tells its story through a couple of dozen Beatles’ songs. So it is necessary to forgive a certain degree of yearning nostalgia. The wealth of references and in-jokes – spare lyrics turning up in dialogue, a rooftop concert, unexpected appearances of Joe Cocker – may seem cornball or literal, and they sometimes are, but the movie’s brand of Beatlemania is unabashedly fannish, too, and understandable in its way. There are plenty of musical acts whose music and lyrics if brought to life would not enchant me. But if Taymor and Co can’t contain their enthusiasm for referring to as many songs, characters, real-life incidents, and other elements in the history of the Beatles, I can’t say I blame them. I may even giggle along in solidarity.

Seeking his father, Jude (Jim Sturgess) meets raffish Princeton student Maxwell (Joe Anderson). As fast friends they wind up in New York’s counterculture scene, along with Max’s sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) and, with a gaggle of musicians, artists, and radicals, navigate the kind of historical ’60’s tumult often seen in textbooks and TV miniseries. Along the way they encounter psychedelic gurus played by celebrity guests, like Dr Robert (Bono) and Mr Kite (Eddie Izzard). This may start to sound like excess until you consider the restraint the screenwriters have shown in failing to include any characters named Michelle, Eleanor Rigby, Bungalow Bill, or Rocky Raccoon.

The film’s approach to storytelling – a load of introductions, characters coming together and scattering in strife, vague characterization – is typical of many stage musicals, and the all-Beatles-song-score in particular recalls the recent, unfortunate jukebox-musical trend in which pop artists’ back catalogues are mined for cheesy sing-alongs. Yet as closely as it resembles bad Broadway at times, Taymor – herself a stage veteran – understands the expanded possibilities of film musicals, and this understanding lends the movie invention and occasional transcendence.

Taymor, taking a cue from Baz Luhrman’s Moulin Rouge, crafts a number of superb musical numbers (and many effective fragments) that would be technically impossible on stage, making good use of the filmic medium’s advantages of close-ups, editing, and visual effects.
These segments do right by their classic inspirations. Strawberry Fields Forever has overlapping images splattered in red, while I Want You takes Max on a nightmarish, surrealistic trip from draft papers to the fields of Vietnam, ending with action-figure soldiers struggling to hold up the Statue of Liberty. (The lyric of choice here is “she’s so heavy” rather than “carry that weight”). It’s not all overloaded bombast either: faithful covers of I’ve Just Seen a Face and With a Little Help From My Friends have youthful exuberance, while I Wanna Hold Your Hand is made over as a song of quiet longing, as Prudence (TV Carpio) sings about an object of affection while making her slow-motion way through a field of gliding football players.

Unfortunately, this is Prudence’s only shining moment; her character turns up in New York only to fade away, save for an obligatory run-through of Dear Prudence. Even in her own song, she seems like an afterthought – not an uncommon problem here. All of the actors are likable and charming but few are given personality; even the sweet central romance between Jude and Lucy is clothesline thin. The film hews closely to that ’60’s textbook not just in its conflicts, but in its characters’ thoughts and feelings; you might wonder why they need such eloquent songs to explain themselves.

Within its chosen confines Across the Universe is unreasonably enjoyable. Once acceptance that this will be a narrative of ’60’s touchstones kicks in, you might notice those notes being handled with care. Vietnam, for example, is approached with clever impressionism; we see only glimpses of the battlefield, and are spared that particular set of clichés in favour of a veterans-hospital rendition of Happiness is a Warm Gun, unnerving and darkly funny in a way John Lennon might’ve appreciated.

Across the Universe is not quite the masterpiece it could have been, but as an experiment, as entertainment, and as a tribute to the group’s lasting inspiration, it works. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jesse Hassenger