Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Maybe in 2007 audiences weren’t ready to see The Beatles covered by emo kids? Perhaps it would have worked better as a stage musical? Why did it have to be so literal? Questions persist about director Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe to this day. The film was bashed when it was released in the fall of ’07. “Gratingly excessive,” “cheesy,” and “masturbatory” were littered among the reviews. It’s not a huge surprise considering that big, gaudy swings like Taymor is used to taking often get thrashed by critics. Reviews like Across the Universe got would fit in well with the Wachowski siblings’ latter era, as Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas, and Jupiter Ascending were also visual spectacles that got slammed for being too silly.
Across the Universe tells the story of America through the ’60s, in the broadest strokes possible, using the broadest possible cultural touchstone: the music of The Beatles. With the songs of John, Paul, George, and Ringo performed by the likes of Jim Sturgess, Evan Rachel Wood, and Joe Anderson, it’s no wonder audiences rebelled. But the singing and the acting were barely half the story. The real story, as if very often the case with Taymor, lies in the eye-popping visuals. With cinematography by Bruno Delbonnel (Amélie, Inside Llewyn Davis) and art direction by Peter Rogness (Far From Heaven; Mildred Pierce), the look of Across the Universe is an ever-changing kaleidoscope of colors and layered imagery. Yes, the story itself was as basic as any ’60s story we’ve seen countless times, but it was the images, layered on top of each other, with literal and metaphorical meaning intermingling heedlessly, that put the songs into context.
