You say want a revolution? Julie Taymor delivers an onscreen one! A gorgeous staging of the classic tale of star-crossed lovers, set against a backdrop of the 1960s, and all set to a Beatles soundtrack? Dig it.
Across the Universe, from director Julie Taymor, is a revolutionary rock musical that re-imagines America in the turbulent late 1960s, a time when battle lines were being drawn at home and abroad. When young dockworker Jude (Jim Sturgess) leaves Liverpool to find his estranged father in America, he is swept up by the waves of change that are re-shaping the nation. Jude falls in love with Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), a rich but sheltered American girl, who joins the growing anti-war movement in New York's Greenwich Village. As the body count in Vietnam rises, political tensions at home spiral out of control and the star-crossed lovers find themselves in a psychedelic world gone mad. Featuring musical performances by rock icons Joe Cocker and Bono, Across the Universe includes 33 of the Fab Four's compositions. [133 min; musical, drama, romance; English]
"Logically, I know that love isn't all you need. For the hour and a half I spent rewatching Across the Universe, though, I thought it was." — Elena Nicolaou, Refinery29
"This much is inarguable: in the more than two flamboyant hours of Across the Universe, Julie Taymor doesn't cheat us for a single second." — Rick Groen, The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
"A strange, nostalgic, suitably outrageous ode to a very real revolution in consciousness." — William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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