This movie is so very odd to place because it is so brilliant in some places and so bad in others. The problem with a premise such as this, as it is with any of the other equivalent Broadway productions, is that you run the risk of including stuff from the source material just for the sake of including it rather than because it adds anything to the story. This, fortunately, was more often the exception rather than the rule, but in the places where it happened it just stuck out like a sore thumb.
For instance, we have all the characters named after people in Beatles songs. This is somewhat cringeworthy in and of itself but tolerable because there’s really no other way to do it. But then at times when, for no apparent reason, we’re randomly introduced to a characters like Rita for no reason other than winking at the audience members who are familiar with (or possibly even like) “Lovely Rita”, meter maid extraordinaire. I mean, she appears on screen for approximately ten seconds. Ten completely unnecessary seconds.
For the same reasons, I could have done without Prudence. Prudence seemed to exist only to facilitate the in-jokes. When she first meets our rag-tag band of heroes in New York City, Sadie asks Jude “Where’d she come from?” He replies in a most obvious fashion “She came in through the bathroom window!” Which, okay, I found that sort of hilarious and it wasn’t awful. But then later on Prudence has some sort of emotional breakdown that causes her to barricade herself inside a closet. Cue everyone else in the apartment singing “Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play?” I mean… no. Stop, just stop, you’re hurting yourself.
My other main complaint is how utterly weak the story was. I mean, it’s clearly the plot of every movie made about the sixties, ever, and frankly I really think they could have gotten their act together to come up with something a tad stronger. I don’t know, sometimes it felt like Forrest Gump: The Musical. The way they dealt with Vietnam was particularly clunky, for the sent poor Max off tot he jungle and then would completely forget about him for huge lengths of time before remembering that they had this character languishing in a swamp half-way around the world.
The thing about this movie, though, is that despite all this there are still so many awesome things in it. The scenes that truly work are the ones that really reveal Julie Taymor’s theatre background, where you only have so much space to work with so you have to get creative in suggesting movement with conveyor belts and movable stage parts and the like, and in this particular setting she has the added bonus of being able to move the audience’s eye a lot more fluidly than she might be able to when confined to the stage. The three really stand out scenes were “I’ve Just Seen A Face”, “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”, and “Happiness Is A Warm Gun”. I can’t describe those scenes or why they were so brilliant because the entire point of those scenes is that they’re something you have to see to understand and no amount of verbosity on my part will help you get it.
The strength of this movie, I think, is in using such extreme visuals to totally re-evaluate, reconfigure, reimagine, and reinterpret the songs. The songs that are unsuccessful in the movie are the ones that are used at face value to just carry along the thin storyline or to provide the characters with melodic dialogue. Don’t get me wrong, I actually cried a fair bit during this movie, but is it because of the film or because of the songs in and of themselves? If it’s just the songs, then those portions of the film aren’t doing their job, but I do think it was an even split between the songs vs. the movie causing it.
Some other things:- Jim Sturgess is a ridiculous cutie and I want to have ten-thousand of his babies. What I loved about him was how he was able to convey the tone of song or a particular lyric through a subtle (or obvious, depending on the context) facial expression. He was just so, so great, he kills me. And he was all bashful on stage before the film began, I just wanted to bundle him up and take him home with me. This guy is freaking adorable, omg.
- You know who is really good at ruining stuff? Bono. File his Doctor Robert under “pointless and unnecessary characters included because we think the audience will get a laugh out of it”. He would have been fine if it was just him hamming it up as a Timothy Leary-esque psychedelic czar but then, oh but then he insisted on singing. And what did he sing? “I Am The Walrus”. I nearly died, and not in a good way. It made me want to cut, for reals.
- I don’t see the fuss about Evan Rachel Wood. She’s pretty average. Marilyn Manson wasn’t at the movie, as far as I could tell.
- I kind of enjoyed the circularity of the rooftop scene. The Beatles did their rooftop concert in 1969, of course, (and weirdly enough I’m listening to “Get Back” right now) and then U2 went and paid homage to that in whatever video it was from The Joshua Tree and from continued random rooftop concerts whenever they feel like it. Then in this movie, they’ve got all these Persian carpets strewn all over the rooftop, just like U2 does repeatedly when doing their own similar shows. Yay for self-referencing and all that.
- Loved the slow blues version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and loved that “A Day In The Life” did not even require words.
- Okay, so, Lucy takes up with a bunch of political activists, but it was completely distracting because the lead activist was totally the guy who played Trey on The O.C.. Later on in the film, they’re getting more and more radical and Lucy finds Trey building pipe bombs and she says “I thought only the other side dropped bombs.” All I could think was “NOT IN CHINO THEY DON’T!” And what’s the deal with characters like his always having to turn out bad in films? In Forrest Gump, Wesley is physically abusive towards Jenny, and this guy turns out to be a pipe bomber. Can’t the militants ever just be convicted without being violent?
- Kind of liked the name Strawberry Jams as a record label.
- Salma Hayek as whom I’ve decided is Mother Superior (of Jump The Gun game) was awesome.
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