Across The Universe (2007 film)

Simply put this is an overwhelming movie. Not in the bad, overbearing way the 1978 disaster Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was, but more in the dazzling experience one would expect from Baz Luhrmann or Ken Russell. That said it might not be for everyone but I couldn't imagine who? Across The Universe looks at the 60s in contemporary lenses and deals the issues facing the youth movement then and now. Key issues are war, love, peace, music with nicely enough less focus on sex and drugs although these issues are dealt with in a less blunt manner. Jude, from Liverpool, in a trip to see his father in America meets a friend Max and his sister Lucy. Max is a recent drop out trying to find out what he wants to do without sacrificing his youth in the meantime. He and Jude take an apartment in NYC. Lucy has/had a boyfriend in the army who died shortly before meeting Jude. Once Max is officially dropped out of NYU he is drafted and Jude tries to comfort Lucy who fears the worse for her brother. Jude, Lucy, Jojo, Prudence and Sadie try to find a way to help Max out but to no avail and they all try to make what they can of their own lives. But the pressures of things beyond their control, particularly the war and their love lives and their careers strain their relationship. Although an active member of a pacifist group Lucy can't get her brother or the other troops home to end an unjust war. But in a not as predictable as it sounds type way, Max comes home mentally scared and physically wounded and Lucy and Jude work things out into a brilliant climax of a rooftop concert performance of "All You Need Is Love." The lower points of the film I might say are Bono as a Californian guru singing "I Am The Walrus" teaching everyone to trip out and a great comic Eddie Izzard performing "For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite" where they once again meet Prudence who was gone for a little bit. These bits are good representations of the songs in a way but don't quite fit the tone of the film.