7 Movies Where The Beatles Music Was The Major Selling Point
4. Across The Universe
Across the Universe is an attempt to twist The Beatles music into one long narrative, jukebox musical style. It’s like Mamma Mia albeit much, much bleaker in tone.
While the ABBA musical found success in a soapy romance set on a picturesque island, Across The Universe covers death, deportation, conscription and shell-shocked soldiers returning from Vietnam.
There is room for some lighter stuff like Eddie Izzard as trippy spiritual guru Mr Kite. Plus the leads are charming as various artists and drop-outs in the orbit of a 1960s New York apartment owned by a suitably sexy Sadie.
The film’s script finds room for all the on-the-nose Beatle references you could ask for and finds time to veer into pleasingly surreal territory in the final third.
The songs are all given interesting arrangements, breathing new life into old classics. Plus they’re all competently sung. Not something you can always say of this sort of film(we’re looking at you Pierce Brosnan).