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Julie Taymor notoriously battled with studio execs over her epic psychedelic romance, which combines a 1960s love story with historical events, all set to a near non-stop soundtrack of Beatles songs. Sound good to you, fellas? Unsurprisingly, Across the Universe seems to leave many male reviewers cold, while women (and predisposed lovers of musicals) enjoy it much more.
First things first: Across the Universe has its contrivances. A 1960s working-class English boy named Jude travels to America to track down his father, becomes buds with a freewheeling college student (who, ahem, gets by with a little help from his friends), and falls in love with his buddy's sister, Lucy. Their lives are affected by Vietnam, they get on a psychedelic bus, and they have friends named JoJo, Sadie (who is sexy) and Prudence. The film is mostly sung, using over 30 Beatles tunes. And yes, there is dancing.

That said, it ain't bad. For what is essentially a boy-meets-girl, girl-gets-political, boy-loses-girl romantic saga, Taymor acquits herself well by marrying the best of the Fab Four's discography to the character drama that writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais have dreamed up, heavily influenced by Beatles mythology. Using 33 of the group's widely divergent songs, Across the Universe easily moves through the transformative socio-political landscape of the 1960s much like the band's own progression through the decades from moptop rock 'n rollers to folksy crooners to psychedelic experimenters.



Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) and Jude (Jim Sturgess) adrift in love in Across the Universe

The best examples of this are our respective introductions to each character. As the film opens, we meet Lucy, a pretty blonde teenager, singing the Beatles' 1963 ditty "Hold Me Tight" to her boyfriend at a high school dance; across the pond in working-class Liverpool, a young lass is singing the same song to the mildly disinterested Jude. [Taymor similarly allows multiple characters to sing songs collectively throughout the film, emphasizing the universality of her source material and each song's potent resonance with the events of the 1960s -- just listen for sniffles in the crowd after an African-American child tearfully sings "Let It Be" while crouched behind a car during a race riot.]

Another early highlight is the dreamily shot "I Want To Hold Your Hand" number, in which actress T.V. Carpio (as a repressed lesbian cheerleader named Prudence) wistfully sings to a fellow classmate while walking obliviously through a football practice. Though at first her character seems out of place in the great romantic scheme of the film, Carpio's is a scene-stealing performance. But then, most of the supporting cast is as strong as the leads (non-singer Evan Rachel Wood is surprisingly good singing "If I Fell," while Jim Sturgess sounds a bit like Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge, only better), including singer Dana Fuchs as the electric Sexy Sadie, who looks like a prettier Joan Osborne with the voice of Janis Joplin.



The gang gets a dose of Sgt. Pepper with Mr. Kite

Taymor's film suffers from a few flaws, not the least of which is its own ambitious scope. At 133 minutes, Across the Universe is stuffed to the gills with elaborate numbers, sets, and story; one supposes that's to be expected in any attempt at contextualizing the whole of the Beatles' expansive catalogue -- and the 1960s. And while the characters are living, singing 1960s cliches -- the activist, the artist, the hippie musician, the veteran -- it doesn't much matter. With a conceit as unrelenting as an entire story told in Beatles songs, the film doesn't really need fully fleshed characters; we're constantly reminded that the words and songs of Paul, John, George and Ringo are driving the story, explaining emotions and motivations. In any case, it's no more cloying or trite than the idea of listening to the most saccharine of Beatles tunes almost four decades after their inception.

Some scenes have a distracting stagebound quality (such as the Vietnam-related "Happiness is a Warm Gun" and "I Want You" numbers, which employ specially-made moving sets, and "With A Little Help From My Friends," which inexplicably calls to mind the showiness of -- ugh -- Rent). Less supporting character exposition and one or two fewer clever cameos -- including Eddie Izzard as traveling vaudeville barker Mr. Kite, Salma Hayek as a morphine-toting war nurse, and U2's Bono as Dr. Robert -- also might have made this imperfect (but imaginative and affecting) film more of a solid gold hit, and, more importantly, an easier sell for females trying to bring their beaus to the theater.

Only Revolution Studios head Joe Roth knows if a half hour less of film plays significantly tighter, but far be it from anyone to begrudge the director her own, singular, vision. For what it's worth, this viewer's heartstrings were exhausted from overuse after a Toronto Film Festival screening, and more than a few journalists were checking their mascara in the ladies' room immediately after. With descriptors like "set to Beatles songs" and "musical romance," Across the Universe might prove a challenging film to bring the BF to -- and it is not without its flaws, for sure -- but anyone with a pulse will leave the theater moved, and that's no small feat.

Across the Universe is out in limited release this Friday, and is currently at 47 percent on the Tomatometer.