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Starring Jim Sturgess and Evan Rachel Wood. Rated PG.

Across the Universe is not simply a wonderful encapsulation of the 1960s. And it doesn't just serve to remind us how deep and potent the Lennon-McCartney songbook remains, even if it does that better than any other movie or theatrical presentation so far devised. What makes this free-flowing musical drama the must-see movie of the year, and maybe of the decade, is the way it conveys the importance of the Mersey Beat era to people who are facing their own metaphysical crossroads today.

Director Julie Taymor, working from a concise script by veteran Brit-TV writing duo Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, is as thoughtful and tonally varied here as she was over-the-top in her megaviolent Titus , and as historically insightful as her Frida was period-fuzzy.

Set in a slightly fictional '60s, the film has a slow but auspicious beginning in Liverpool (hmm, that sounds familiar) and then follows handsome adventurer Jude (impressive newcomer Jim Sturgess) to New England and New York. He lands just in time to enjoy the luxurious squalor of the East Village and to meet a young woman, called Lucy (a radiant Evan Rachel Wood), worth crossing the Atlantic for.

Jude meets her through his new best pal, Max (played by England's Joe Anderson, who struggles with his Yank accent). They all end up at a crash pad run by a Janis Joplin like singer (Dana Fuchs) who also takes in a struggling guitarist, JoJo (Martin Luther), who increasingly resembles a certain Mr. Hendrix. The actors do their own singing in smart arrangements that put effective new spins on about 30 Beatles tunes. Although barely scratching the L&M repertoire (with a few nods to George Harrison), every style of popular music is touched. Each number deftly advances the central story, which pits youthful self-discovery against the criminal insanity of plucking up youngsters and sending them off to kill brown-skinned people in Iraq I'm sorry, I meant to say Vietnam.

Taymor draws an obvious parallel here, but alongside her call to moral arms, she acknowledges the futility and eventual hardening of the antiwar movement of the time. In any case, she doesn't let polemics interfere with the sheer pleasure of the songs, egged along by occasional visits from guests such as Bono ("I Am the Walrus"), Eddie Izzard (a goofily psychedelic "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite"), and, best of all, Joe Cocker singing "Come Together" in a variety of cool guises.

The movie, though, isn't about stunt casting and special effects. In a little more than two hours, it perfectly recalls a brief era when everything seemed possible and, miraculously, a new Beatles song seemed to materialize just as every possibility hit home.