Life > October 25, 2007

By Aubrey Sitler | Contributing Writer

In the past few years, musicals have been making a comeback in Hollywood. Chicago, Rent, Dreamgirls and Hairspray all saw great amounts of success when they transitioned from the Broadway stages of New York to the big screen in Hollywood.

Movie poster for Across the Universe, a bizarre new musical featuring Beatles songs and only Beatles songs.

But most recently, a new film with an original concept and an inventive storyline was released that will perhaps change the way musicals in general are viewed by the public.

From its opening moments, Across the Universe establishes itself as a musical different from any other.

Acclaimed director Julie Taymor is responsible for the direction and conception of this innovative film. “The idea was to create an original musical using only the songs of the Beatles,” Taymor said.

Unlike most musicals, where a story comes first and songs are inserted in at key points, the plot of the film is driven by the music: the songs create the story.

“The entire concept of this musical is that the lyrics will tell the story,” Taymor said. “They are the libretto, they are the arias, they are the emotion of the characters.”

The movie’s soundtrack consists of 33 revolutionary songs, including “Hey Jude,” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “Let it Be,” all of which have been reexamined and reinterpreted to tell the untold tale of two star-crossed lovers in a world filled with change.

The film is set in the 1960s amid the chaotic years of anti-war protest, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. In telling the story of Jude (Jim Sturgess), who comes to the United States in search of his long-lost father, and Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), an upper-class suburbanite, it transitions from the dockyards of Liverpool to the streets of psychedelic Greenwich Village, from the comfort and predictability of suburbia and the Ivy League to the battlefields of Vietnam.

The two star-crossed lovers, along with a small group of friends and musicians, are swept up into the emerging anti-war and counter-culture movements.

Due to forces outside their control, Jude and Lucy are torn apart and made, against all odds, to find their own way back to each other through a world strewn with change and destruction.

According to Taymor, the film was meant to “investigate the 60s. It had to penetrate all levels of the Beatles’ songs.

“From the love songs to the political songs, the music and the film would not just reflect the microcosm of a character’s experience, but, from my perspective, would also represent the macrocosm of the events that are happening in the world.”

In this, the director’s vision was realized. Although it is more than slightly trippy at times, the film succeeds in exploring several different levels of the Beatles’ songs.

From minor character Prudence innocently singing “I Want to Hold Your Hand” as an out-of-place cheerleader in Ohio, to Jude’s version of “Revolution” filled with outrage and passion, to Lucy’s solemn rendition of “Blackbird,” every sensation from love to hate is expressed through the music.

My only complaint with the film lies in its lack of cohesiveness. In trying to incorporate the many issues associated with the generation at hand, the love story sometimes gets lost or pushed aside.

This would be perfectly OK if the film did not culminate by solely tying together the story of Jude and Lucy as star-crossed lovers while leaving the outcomes of the war and the protests completely untouched.

Unlike most musicals, Across the Universe has the ability to attract a wide range of audiences.

Since all of its musical compositions are Beatles songs and the performers themselves are not musical theatre types in the least, the usual complaints that some have with musicals being tacky or superficial do not hold true here.

Quite simply, it is a movie for musical lovers and haters alike.