Across the Universe

The limits of interpretation apply to Across the Universe. The Beatles, icons of the 60s, have their music served up as story and discussion about two youths who fall in love but are torn apart by the political struggles to stop Vietnam War. A different Beatles song lays out a different emotion and thought for the short history of the characters and their times.

The film is a true musical in the sense that the lyrics are suppose to be as important and as meaningful as anything piece of dialogue, but the film over values the meaning of the music of the Beatles. The band dealt with both pop tunes and explorations in rock and darker subjects, but the idea that some of their songs are good for political climate of the 1960s is much less believable. The Beatles were politically aware but most of their progression with material and subject matter was personal. The few times they did outright deal with social change it was done in the most general way. The film milks those for songs for all they are worth and even extends the meaning of other songs to prove points that had little to do with original intention and isn't very believable now.

For Julie Taymour the filmmaker the story matters very little. She continues her exploration of mixing styles and sets to create visual poetry, but she underwhelms in Across the Universe. A few ideas and visuals are good, but she keeps the visua moments spread too far and too tin over the course of the film. Each new visual moment has a new set up and design and lasts many seconds instead of minutes. When Federico Fellini made Juliet of the Spirits, he tied the visuals together for twenty minutes of length sometimes. He understood the visuals were important, but it was more interesting in how they could be brought together through editing. Julie Taymour tries to impress us more with exaggerated production sets up. She doesn't link the visuals to that many impressive filmmaking sequences.

Definitely, Maybe

Love stories are like pop songs. They deal with our most intrinsic interest in life, but they also gloss over reality for ideal and conveniance. People always make too much importance of them. The fact they can relate to the basic feelings isn't that important. The words "I love you" are meaningful to everyone, but replicating those emotions in sugar coated works of pop entertainment always has great limitations.

The difference with Definitely, Maybe is that the story does try to complicate an age old formula. The father tells his daughter the story of how he fell in love with his mother. He tries to convince her it is complicated but she argues that it isn't. And so the film begins by relaying over his history with three different women and how chance events and new moments moved him from one girl to the next or from one great moment to a low one. Definitely, Maybe has a few ideas correct in that it cannot leave definite impressions of each woman or moment. Some characters just do drift away and ideas of his old self also just fade.

The few good parts of the film are shading around with what is still a standard vehicle movie. Ryan Reynolds is judged as an actor by his likability instead of his depth and the final hurrah with the great romance has the characteristics of a full fledged dream come true. It's relatable to no one but people who live vicariously through romance novels, stories and songs. I'd be lying if I didn't say the film tugged at a few of my emotions, but any sad situation can do that. The story of feelings in movies and how we relate to them has more to do with personal experience and intellectual thought. All of our senses have to be challenged. Definitely, Maybe just challenges a few and white washes a lot more. It's still just a holiday movie in the end.