Stephen Holden from the New York Times called it “unadulterated white, middle-class baby boomer nostalgia”.īut these sentiments miss the beauty and the artistry of Taymor’s reinvention of the music and the period. Time Out described Across the Universe as “often so embarrassing to watch that you’ll be checking over your shoulder to check that no one’s looking.” The film was a total flop at the box office, making just US$29.6 million (A$41.8 million) against a production budget of US$70.8 million (A$99.9 million). But even with its popular soundtrack and Taymor’s credentials, Across The Universe did not replicate the success of other jukebox movie musicals of the decade like Moulin Rouge! (2001) or Mamma Mia! (2008). The combination of a Beatles soundtrack and a star director should therefore have been a formula for a hit. In the early 2000s, musicals based on popular songbooks experienced renewed popularity on stage and screen, and shows like American Idol(2002–), where contestants regularly sing 60s and 70s songs, became major hits. Critics called it commercialised fodder for bourgeois audiences who lacked any real engagement with the politics of the period – but I think the film actually asks something more complex of its audience. The movie was blasted for its saccharine, hippy-dippy, sanitised depictions of the 60s. This mirrors The Beatles’ own final performance on the rooftop of the Apple Corps building in London in 1969. The film is in a near-constant state of song - there are only 30 minutes of spoken dialogue – ending with the cast uniting in a rooftop performance of “All You Need is Love”. When Lucy’s boyfriend is killed in Vietnam, she also moves to New York, where she and Jude fall in love. Carpio), a lesbian runaway from Ohio Sadie (Dana Fuchs), a Janis Joplin-like soul singer and the Jimi Hendrix-like Jo-Jo (Martin Luther McCoy), who is fleeing the race riots in Detroit. Max and Jude move to New York, sharing a flat with Prudence (T.V. Liverpool dockworker Jude (Jim Sturgess) heads to the US in search of his American father, where he becomes friends with Princeton dropout Max (Joe Anderson) and Max’s sister, Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). In 2007, Columbia Pictures released the psychedelic Across the Universe, using 33 songs by The Beatles to form a story of young bohemians living in New York during the Vietnam War era.
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