This was interesting, a story narrated with the help of some of the Beatles songs. I liked the actors and the story, not so much the psychedelic bits. It starts with Jude (Jim Sturgess) in Liverpool. He sings ‘Girl’ to let us know the main theme here will be his love story, I guess. He works at the Docks and plans to go away to America and never come back. The old man that gives him his paycheck says that he thought the same once, he thought that “when I’m sixty-four” he wouldn’t be at that job anymore. Not a song this time, just a reference.
Jude leaves a girlfriend, Molly, promising to write every day, the usual stuff, but the scene was pretty nice: he starts singing “Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you” at first without music, as if he was talking, with her replying to him :-) very nice. Then came the music.
In America, Danny leaves Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) for his soldier-duty, and brunette Wildcat cheerleader sings “I want to hold your hand”… ? Does she have any role at all in the movie?
Jude goes to Princeton to meet the man that years ago had a flirt with his mom and then went away leaving her, not knowing that she was pregnant. He’s not a professor, but the janitor. Jude tells him “I believe I’m your son”, but has no intention of wrecking his life. Dad tells him that, had he known, he would have come back, but now he has a different life, with a family. She never told him because that wouldn’t have been a proof of love, just that he felt obligated.
Dad lets him stay there, at the janitor’s place. Jude meets Max (Joe Anderson). Max sings “with a little help from my friends”. They become friends.
Lucy receives a letter and sings “It won’t be long” since her boyfriend will be coming home.
Max takes Jude to spend Thanksgiving with his family: so Jude meets Lucy who is Max’s sister.
Max has a fight with his father (Dylan Baker) and his uncle Teddy (Bill Irwin) because he wants to drop out of college and go to New York. Max and Lucy take Jude bowling and Jude sings “I’ve just seen a face” because he likes Lucy. Max and Jude go to NY together and rent a room in singer Sadie’s apartment; Max pays everything for now.
Lucy’s boyfriend died. There are images of war and a boy singing “let it be” very well.
Jo-Jo (Martin Luther McCoy) comes to New York and Joe Cocker sings “Come together” with some people on the street. He becomes Sadie’s guitarist. A girl named Prudence enters the apartment from the bathroom window to escape a violent ‘mistake’ and stops there for a while. Lucy comes too, wanting to be with her brother after the loss of her boyfriend. Just for the summer before going to college, she says.
Sadie sings “why don’t we do it in the road?” and Lucy brings a letter for Max: the Draft. He has to “report to an Induction Centre”. JoJo did it already, and tells him that he can burn the letter if he wants but he still has to show up at that centre.
Jude and Lucy talk, he draws her face on a wall, then she sings “if I fell” in love with him… and they both do.
Max goes hoping to be rejected and there’s a weird and a little scary music number “I want you” and he is accepted of course, and sent to Vietnam.
Sadie has a story with JoJo and Prudence is jealous and locks herself inside a closet and they all sing “Dear Prudence” to her to convince her to come out.
At a party Bono sings “I am the Walrus “ as Dr. Robert. There must have been something strange in that punch because it all goes total crazy from there for a while. They suddenly find themselves who knows where, at Mr Kite’s place (Eddie Izzard). He sings “Being for the benefit of Mr Kite “, and then they all sing “the sky is blu “ while making sex.
Lucy works as a waitress and she joins a pacifist group against the war. Jude sings “Something “
watching her sleep naked. He is jealous of her time spent with the activists group and with Paco.
A publisher wants Sadie to leave JoJo and sign up with him. At her gig she starts singing “Oh Darling “ while she fights with JoJo and then she leaves and he finishes the song.
Jude sings “ Strawberry fields forever “ after smoking some stuff. He fights with Lucy because he thinks Paco is a Don Juan and she replies that he (Jude) doesn’t do anything to stop the war and bring Max home. Later Jude goes to the activists place and sings “ Revolution “ making a scene, then hits Paco and is thrown out, and she cries Why did you do that?
JoJo sings “ while my guitar gently weeps “, and when Jude is back at the apartment Lucy’s gone.
He sings “Across the universe “ and then the police come and arrest Paco and Lucy and the other protesters and Jude tries to intervene, to reach her, and is beaten up and arrested too. His dad comes to help but the problem is that Jude has no Visa so he’s kicked off the Country and back to England. His ex girlfriend is now with Phil (Michael Ryan, I know him but don’t know from what) and pregnant. Max sings “ happiness is a warm gun “ from a hospital bed. Lucy is upset when she sees Paco and his friends making bombs. Jude reads on a paper “American Anti-war radicals killed in homemade bomb blast” and thinks of Lucy. Max is back home but war changes people. Lucy sings “ blackbird “ and there is a scene with Max and Jude drinking (one in an English pub, the other in an American bar) and Max sings “ ehi Jude “ to him, and Jude packs up and goes back to America. When he arrives in New York Max is there to hug him. Jude”you don’t look too messed up” ; Max”yeah well everything below the neck works fine”
Max did not tell Lucy that Jude was coming back. Sadie is back with Jojo, and using Jude’s strawberry logo. They sing “ don’t let me down “ from a rooftop and police come to clear the place.
They leave all the instruments behind so Jude starts singing “ all you need is love “ and they all come back and Lucy hears it but can’t go up to the roof, so he goes up the front building and then looks at him and he looks at her and they smile and it’s the end.
During the credits we can listen to Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
ITA across the universe
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