Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
Yesterday sees singer/songwriter Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) finally give up on his dreams of success, after years of failing to make a splash on the local pub circuit, much to the disappointment of his manager, ex-school friend and now school teacher, Lily James’s Ellie Appleton. However, during a mysterious global blackout / glitch in the matrix, Jack is knocked off his bike by a bus and on recovering, finds that the world has, somehow, had all knowledge and evidence of The Beatles scrubbed from it.
In short, he goes about re-recording as much of their catalogue as he can remember, and while he’s still not an overnight success, eventually he turns enough heads to get a supporting gig on an Ed Sheeran tour, lighting a rocket that will propel him to fame and acclaim, and all the trappings that accompany being a massive star these days, but will take a toll on his personal life and his mental state.
There’s the odd moment where Yesterday looks like it’s going to veer into examining something interesting in its premise, and there is promise in that premise. Could presenting songs written 50 to 60 years ago achieve the same level of success in today’s very different cultural landscape? How would pop culture have changed, having removed one of the biggest influences on pop and rock? Can someone really connect to an audience recreating some songs fairly personal to Lennon and McCartney? Can you pluck songs from the very different eras of The Beatles career arc and present them together without sounding like you have multiple personality disorder? How has the nature of music creating, production and fandom changed since the 60s, and would that make a difference to how the work is received? Can you manage a more blatant product placement of Pepsi?
Tellingly for modern cinema, the only question out of those Yesterday seems interested in answering is about product placement. There’s a few half-hearted lunges at some of them, but they’re so under-developed that I rather wish they hadn’t bothered. Sure, as the brothers Gallacher admitted yonks ago, if there’s no Beatles, there’s no Oasis, but there’s apparently no other impact on other recording artists, or entire genres, or wider culture in general that’s worth exploring, or well, at least mentioning?
Now, I’m perhaps not as annoyed by the waste of the premise as I might have been, because I paid attention to the one part that mattered in the trailer, the part where it said “written by Richard Curtis”, and knew exactly what bill of goods I was being sold. A slight variation on the same trite romance he’s been rewriting since Four Weddings and A Funeral, hung from a slightly different scaffolding.
So, does that romance work? Eeh. The problem is that Jack Malik, or if we’re being less charitable, Himesh Patel, not only isn’t the most dynamic band frontman or screen presence, he’s barely a character at all, and quite what Ellie would see in this sack of unmixed concrete at any point, let alone years later, is entirely beyond me.
The other main axis his character is exploring is the toll taken by passing off someone else’s work as his own, and the perhaps warranted impostor syndrome that provokes. To be scrupulously fair Patel is much better at getting that across, culminating in a version of “Help!” that does actually sound like someone dealing with an existential crisis.
The film’s supporting characters don’t quite get the material they need to provide support, unfortunately, but through no fault of the actors. Lily James is likeable, but their pre-existing relationship isn’t all well explored enough to have much emotional impact when it changes as the story progresses, and as that’s the main string to this films bow, it can’t help but misfire.
The comic support fares a little better, with another spiky Kate McKinnon turn and Joel Fry’s gormless roadie Rocky raising a few laughs. It’s also great to see UK TV comic mainstays Sanjeev Bhaskar and Meera Syal on the big screen as Malik’s parents.
Now, for his faults Curtis still knows how to craft a funny line, and Danny Boyle has his best production hat on, and you’re never far away from a rendition of a great tune, so it’s not completely insufferable. In fact I enjoyed this more than I’d expected. But as I expected to loathe it, that’s not the most glowing recommendation, now, is it?
Sadly, a bit of a waste of the no-doubt millions it cost to license the songs.