The movie begins with a young man sitting on a beach, staring directly at the camera, in music video style, singing a haunting rendition of "Girl," a song originally performed by the Beatles. "Is there anybody going to listen to my story?" he sings, inciting our interest in what this "story" is going to be about while arousing the memory of those beloved lyrics. As the film progresses, we discover that the young man, is named Jude Feeny. The movie takes begins in the gloomy atmosphere of Liverpool, England.Feeny later decides to go to America to find his father, who is completely unaware of his son's existence. Predictably, the son is disappointed by his father's aloofness towards him and begins to romp around with a pack of Ivy League hoodlums, befriending the boisterous Max Carrigan, (Joe Anderson).
Through Carrigan, Feeny meets Lucy Carrigan, (Evan Rachel Wood), the fair-faced beauty with whom he falls in love. With the turbulent '60s as the backdrop of their youthful romance, the couple's relationship is tested by events such as Carrigan's enlistment into the army at the beginning of the Vietnam War and Feeny's refusal to support Lucy's pacifistic activism. Feeny meets fascinating personalities that include a seductive rockstar, Sadie (Dana Fuchs), and an enigmatic guitarist, Jo-Jo (Martin Luther McCoy).
Added to this plot of sorts are the visuals and the Beatles-inspired score, which make the film worth watching. Bizarre masks, contortionists and underwater ballet are a few of the things that turn the movie into a work of surreal art.
Much of the screen time takes place in New York City, a breeding ground for the hippie movement. The characters are immediately swept up in the countercultural milieu of Greenwich Village as they indulge in LSD-induced reveries with friends. Surrealistic images flood the scene in which a colorful gang of hippies takes the main characters on a wild ride across the country in a psychedelically painted bus. These artists and addicts are, no doubt, reminiscent of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, with Dr.Roberts (Bono) as their leader.
Instead of being a love story about two people, "Universe" seems to be more in love with itself and with the '60s. Julie Taymor directs a movie as unabashed as her last masterwork, "Frida." The boldest scenes of the film are also its most beautiful, such as when a poster of Uncle Sam comes to life and threatens the young enlistees at a military base, or when Feeny throws bleeding strawberries at a montage of fighting soldiers in a fit of rage. The film is a cultural phenonmenon because it contains countless Beatles references and appearances by the blues singer Joe Cocker.
Although the film takes risks, it sometimes goes overboard by adding unnecessary tension to the plot to bring out another occasion to sing a Beatles song. For example, the friction in Jo-Jo and Sadie's relationship seems pointless because of the rough transition that leads up to it. Perhaps the brilliant performance of "Oh! Darling" as a breakup song makes up for this blunder, but even so, the disjointedness of the narrative becomes very noticeable. In this sense, "Universe" seems overly devoted to the Beatles, though it endows some of the songs with unprecedented depth through the events in the lives of the characters who sang them.
Aside from its flaws, "Across the Universe" is a tour de force that comes from an admirable, collaborative effort between Taymor and her husband, composer Elliot Goldenthal. We may be tempted to accuse the film of commercializing and romanticizing the culture of the '60s, of merely copying what art truly is. But, "Across the Universe" does not pander to young and ignorant viewers. It beautifies and distorts, making the '60s seem more distant than memory itself. The film is a wonderful tribute to the fact that the '60s was more than just a period of time between the Disco Era and the cultural reign of the Beat Generation.