ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

I am so excited.  This weekend I am going to see the new movie Yesterday which is about a struggling musician/songwriter who wakes up from an accident to find a world that has never heard of The Beatles.  At first, he plays the band’s songs just to determine if they really are unknown, but later he starts to claim them as his own in order to become famous.  Or so the preview says.  Since I have watched every movie starring The Beatles themselves, or their music, since 1964 when A Hard Day’s Night previewed, I will have to see it.  In the meantime, I thought I’d write this week’s post on another movie featuring music by the famous group called Across the Universe, which came out in 2007.  There will be no spoilers here.  If you want to know how the story ends, you’ll have to see the film.  It can be rented on several streaming services for 4 bucks or accessed for free with interruptions by occasional ads on the Roku Channel.


At first glance, Across the Universe is a love story about Jude (Jim Sturgess), a young man from Liverpool, England (home of the group), and Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), a high schooler from the American mid-west.  The movie opens on a beach with Jude singing a few lines from “Girl” while looking wistfully into the distance.  Is he singing about someone he already knows or someone he has envisioned but not yet met?  On the other side f the world, Lucy is at her high school prom where all the girls are dressed in pastel frilly formals and their clean-cut boyfriends are wearing matching tuxedos.  It is clear as she sings “Hold Me Tight” while dancing with her boyfriend, that she loves him.  She is also proud of him.  He has voluntarily enlisted in the military and is getting ready to leave for boot camp.  But Lucy is not as naïve or conventional as she seems.  She tells her friends that she wants to do something with her life other than settling down and having kids.


Back in England, Jude is also saying goodbye to his sweetheart, but there are no high school hops and lace dresses here.  He meets up with her in a dingy bar where he goes after working at a dirty job in a factory all day and, in contrast to their counterparts in America, the couple is dressed in dark clothes and black leather jackets.  Like Lucy, Jude’s girlfriend will miss him, but the tone of their farewell is different because he isn’t leaving for any type of cause.  Simply desiring a break from the poverty and hardship he has known as the son of a single mother, he has signed on with a cargo ship.  He swears his devotion by serenading his girlfriend with “All My Lovin’” but since he is leaving by choice, she has her doubts.


When he gets to America, Jude jumps ship and hitch hikes to New Jersey to find his father, a Princeton University faculty member, who he was able to track down through military records.  When Jude gets to the campus, he asks a student where to find Professor Huber.  The student, Max (Joe Anderson), responds that he knows everyone on the faculty because he has been failed by nearly all of them, but the only person he knows by the name Huber works in maintenance.  Not to be dissuaded, Jude finds the janitor and introduces himself.  The man replies that he didn’t know he had a son in England, nor does he want anything to interfere with his family, but he will let Jude bunk in the maintenance room; realizing that’s all he’s going to get, Jude takes the offer.  Later than evening, he goes out for a smoke and encounters Max in the company of some other guys.  They offer him alcohol and pot, while singing “With a Little Help From my Friends”.  


As expected, Max gets kicked out of college and heads home, taking Jude with him.   Unlike his new friend, Max has a large family that lives in a mansion on an estate.  Dinners are eaten around a big table crowded with parents, uncles, and siblings, including a sister named Lucy.  When Max tells everyone that he’s been kicked out of school, the adults become upset, reminding the young man that what a person does defines him.  They also warn him that he likely will be drafted and sent to Vietnam.  Max’s solution is to go bowling.  Lucy comes along and Jude, who is immediately drawn to her, watches her every move as he sings “I’ve Just Seen a Face”.   By the time the evening is over, Max and Jude have decided to go to New York.  Jude also has fallen for Lucy, but she still has a boyfriend who is serving in Vietnam.  


In New York, Max and Jude quickly find a room in an apartment owned by a singer named Sadie who is notably sexy.  They are shortly joined by two more roomies, a teenage lesbian named Prudence who comes in through the bathroom window to escape a violent boyfriend and a black man named Jo-Jo who has just gotten back to town.  It turns out that he is both Sadie’s lead guitar player and love of her life, when they aren’t fighting.  Jo-Jo’s return enables Sadie to get her band back together and they resume performing in public.  One night when the group has a gig at a local bar, a talent scout hears them and offers Sadie a record deal.  She puts him off, however, because the offer is more for her than the entire group.


As the war escalates in Southeast Asia another one is simmering at home.  America’s racism, long a hotbed of social unrest, ignites into inner city riots between blacks and white law enforcement.  As police batter the protestors, a young boy hides, sweetly singing “Let It Be”.  The song is taken over by a church choir at his funeral, but his death is not the only one.  Lucy’s boyfriend has been killed in Vietnam.  This changes both her and the tone of the movie; the alteration is exacerbated when a draft notice arrives at the house for Max.  Needing a new start, Lucy decides to follow her brother to New York, and deliver the letter in person.  This time when she runs into Jude, she notices him.  In a poignant rendition of “If I Fell” she contemplates the possibility of allowing herself to love again.  Jude, who has been interested in Lucy since their first encounter, feels the same and the two begin spending time together.  One day he sketches her portrait on the wall of an abandoned building.  Touched by his gesture and impressed by his talent, Lucy allows herself to fall for him. 


When Max goes to the Army induction center to get his physical, the movie’s portrayal of the United States shifts from anecdotal to sardonic.  A poster of Uncle Sam croons “I Want You” as the young recruits carry the statue of liberty, singing “She’s so heavy.”   Meanwhile, Sadie gets mad at Jo-Jo and signs with the talent scout.  To celebrate their union, he takes her to a party at the home of Dr. Robert; she, in turn, invites Jude, Lucy, Prudence, and her band members to come along.  The gathering is wild, the ambiance is mind-blowing, and the fruit punch, which they drink, is laced with LSD.  While tripping, Sadie and her friends climb aboard Dr. Robert’s VW bus and he takes them to the home of Dr. Geary at the League of Spiritual Deliverance in California three thousand miles away.  When the illusive doctor refuses to see him, Dr. Robert gets so mad he jumps in his bus and takes off, leaving Sadie and her friends behind.  After he is gone, the group is treated to a weird show by Mr. Kite with bizarre performers in a circus tent that pulsates with psychedelic images.  As they “come down”, the group lays in a field singing a beautifully harmonic version of “Because.”  In the meantime, no longer a part of Sadie’s band, Jo-Jo goes solo.  His song of choice is “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” which proffers an anthem of hope to humanity.


When the group gets home, Lucy learns that Max has been sent to Vietnam.  Angry about the war and the possibility that the same thing that happened to her boyfriend will happen to her brother, she decides to join an anti-war group that is led by a man named Paco.   By now Jude and Lucy live together; as she waits tables and goes to anti-war meetings, he paints and sketches, covering the apartment with pictures of Lucy while lovingly singing “Something”.  Recognizing his talent, Sadie commissions Jude to produce a cover for her album.  Jealous of the relationship between Lucy and Paco, however, the artist is in a dark mood and fashions strawberries as pierced hearts with their juice dripping like blood.  Hating the way the world he’s known is disintegrating around him, Jude sings “Across the Universe”, stubbornly refusing to accept the transformations he is witnessing.  He ends up going to the anti-war office and tearing the place apart to a sarcastic rendition of the Beatles “Revolution.”  This is the last straw for Lucy, who packs up and leaves.  


Jude goes to a rally hoping to find her, but instead gets caught in the fray and is arrested.  When the police discover he is in the country illegally, they move to have him deported back to England.  Someone calls his father, but he is unable to stop the action because he can’t prove that Jude is his son and, therefore, an American citizen.  The result is that Jude is sent back to Liverpool where there is no work for him as an artist and his former girlfriend is with someone new.  Too caught up in her own private hell to worry about him, Lucy continues her anti-war activities until she discovers Paco and his cronies making bombs.  She abandons the movement to take care of Max who has been sent home physically sound but mentally broken just before the next rally where many protestors, including Paco, are killed when their bomb explodes prematurely.


That’s all for now.  As I already promised, I won’t reveal the ending.  If you want to find out whether Jude and Lucy get back together or Sadie and Jo-Jo reunite, you’ll have to see the movie.  When you do, notice how skillfully social issues like homosexuality, interracial couples, racism, and war are addressed using The Beatles’ songs.  Also, pay attention to the ways music and settings differ before and after Max is drafted as the characters become cognizant of the many problems their country is facing; I personally am torn between the adverbs artfully and masterfully.  That’s all for now.  I’ll be back in two weeks to discuss the movie Cactus Flower which came out in 1969.  The next week, I’ll showcase its remake, Just Go with It, from 2011.  Until then enjoy as many flicks as you can.


BTW, I really enjoyed Yesterday.