Beyond the Universe (Depois do Universo) is a drama film directed by Diego Freitas and stars Henrique Zaga, Giulia Be, João Miguel, Othon Bastos and Leo Bahia, alongside other cast members. The movie has a runtime of 127 minutes.
The Netflix description reads:
While waiting for a kidney transplant, a young pianist finds an unexpected connection with her doctor — and the courage to fulfill her musical dreams.
– Beyond the Universe Review Contains Mild Spoilers –
Beyond the Universe is a very good-looking film. Bleak storylines aside, the movie takes you in the midst of beautiful pink and blued-hued clouds and stars and all things magical. It, thus, doesn’t help that our leading lady Nina is fighting with herself, quite literally, to realise her dreams.
In comes Gabriel, the usual quirky boy next door who brings the glass-half-full approach to Nina’s life. How do these two worlds collide? Is Nina able to reach her goals and win the war with herself?
The storyline is what we have seen in literally every romantic comedy. Girl and guy meet, one helps the other overcome something treacherous and do/do not end up together. There’s nothing profound here to watch, and Beyond the Universe takes too damn long to get anywhere.
As we trudge towards the crescendo, there are several scenes that just feel so extra and forced that you will be compelled to skip right through. It’s not like these scenes are uninteresting; actually, they add something to Nina and her relationship with Gabriel. But, the scenes are milked for too long, and so you start to lose interest after a while.
At the halfway point, I was almost certain that the movie was about to end, but Beyond the Universe doesn’t want to give up that soon and goes on another wild goose chase of love and bitter realities. It’s a bit sad, however, that we don’t get to enjoy a tight and gripping story thanks to how predictable and lengthy the story gets after half-time.
Beyond the Universe, in a bid to be a bittersweet watch, gets a bit too bitter and takes away from the entertainment factor of the movie. Sure, tragedies are a part of life, and there’s literally nothing cute or entertaining about it. But the drama film commits to the theme so much that you lose the plot halfway down the line.
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Nina’s struggles, however, although bleak, are the really emotional parts of the movie. You don’t want her to suffer, and you desperately want her to win in this game of life and thus, when she suffers, so feel some sort of way. Singer-songwriter Giulia Be does a great job of bringing out Nina’s desperation and passion for music.
In the end, however, Beyond the Universe just goes off the rails. I ask this to people in general, and I know that it might be a spoiler, but is it necessary to forcefully kill off one character in the most devastating way possible? I, personally, think that it’s lazy writing – when you can’t do anything more dramatic, murder a character. After 2 hours, you’d expect a positive arc to the story, but hey – that wouldn’t make it dramatic now, would it?
Summing Up: Beyond the Universe
There’s a reason why relationships with a clear-cut imbalance in power dynamics are frowned upon and discouraged. There’s always a chance that the person in power can take advantage of the other person in more ways than one. Beyond the Universe, although somewhat, plays with the bitterness and hopelessness of a rather hard life, it just runs the sad marathon for too long.
The predictability factor is what makes the movie a dud, personally. Just too much happens for no reason other than to add more and more drama to the mix that we could’ve done away with it. A shorter and crisper storyline would’ve made a better impact on the audience.
Beyond the Universe is streaming on Netflix.
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I think you need to go back to the classics in story telling and understand romance screenwritting as a whole. Beyond The Universe is beloved by fans all over the world, with a deep message of resilience and enjoying each moment as if it were your last. This sort of hate giving it an unfairly low score only hurts you as a diletante “critic”.
I have not watched this movie and probably never will, because first it is really disappointing how they just discriminate great greek philosophers. Hippocrates, Socrates and many many other philosophers are from Greece and not Italy. Just saying a comment like “ah, they are just some italian dudes” already shows how uneducated and discriminating the writer is! Doesnt surprise me though, the majority of Americans are like that. Second, the hippocratic oath is not something to laugh about and just let it slide, like it is nothing important. Doctors make this oath for a reason and that the male leader broke that oath makes him just immature, as the whole movie scenario. These kind of films are like copy paste, same plot, same ending, nothing original to them. The relationship itself seems superficial and not deep enough.
If you wanna see a romantic movie, just go see the classics and not the bad copies that are made in the last years.
I think the length of the movie justifies the character of Gabriel and definitely gave a solid background of the story, like it helped the viewers love them more that’s why it hurts so much given the ending. U can say it’s forced when the story line is rushed. ????