Is it possible to make a good movie about The Beatles without the original Beatles themselves? No, Yellow Submarine doesn’t count. Maybe, if you’re focusing on the fans, or on their early days, back when the band was still known as The Quarrymen, but the track record for cutesy movie-musical takes on the band’s songbook have an atrocious batting average. Remember The Bee Gees’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band? Not many people do, and with good reason. The only reason people remember Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe as fondly as they do is because they saw it when they were in high school (and I’m really not trying to shit-talk any of my peers here), and were that perfect age to have their knowledge pleasantly patronized and their knowledge of the band’s back catalogue feted. Now, attempting to shatter that perception is Danny Boyle’s Yesterday, penned by Love Actually director Richard Curtis, which, admittedly, has one hell of a hook: What would you do if you were the only person in the world who remembered The Beatles? If you answered “get as famous as humanly possible as quickly as possible,” than you’re a person who, much like Curtis, thinks that The Beatles’ songbook is strong enough to be ripped straight from its era and placed in, perhaps, the single least-friendly time for that in modern pop history.
Anyways, that’s exactly where Yesterday‘s main character, a struggling musician named Jack (Himesh Patel) finds himself. After getting hit by a bus when biking home from what he swore would be his “last” gig, Jack finds that his friends — including Ellie (Lily James), the young woman who was always his number one fan and manager — have no memory whatsoever of the Fab Four. Turns out, the whole reason Jack even got into that accident was due to a global power-outage that lasted two minutes, which, apparently, had magical properties. So, Jack, burnt out by having to spend decades toiling away at making mediocre original songs, discovers that he can potentially use the Lennon-McCartney catalogue to get his big break. And, sure enough, over the course of a few weeks, he makes it to the big times, with the assistance of a little-known pop star named Ed Sheeran (who is actually kind of nice in this film, honestly). He’s traveling all over the world, playing his music, and eventually lands a record deal. But Ellie’s not going to wait around for him all day: She, a teacher, doesn’t want to leave her students behind and follow Jack on his path. As his star begins to grow and grow, Jack slowly gets terrified that he’ll lose everything in this odd Faustian bargain that he’s been given free-of-charge and has to make a choice: Musical success, or the woman he loves?
Let’s say some nice stuff first: Patel and James are genuinely charming leads, who are nearly swell enough to put their individual romance over the top in the early-going. James, who’s often the secret weapon of every movie that she’s in, is a bundle of joy, brightening the corners of the frame in each and every shot’s in. On the other hand, Patel has a scruffy charm about him, much in the way that a young nerdy-hot teacher does, and his voice is absolutely lovely. If there’s anything in this movie that is unimpeachable, it’s how he sounds when he’s singing Lennon and McCartney’s lyrics. Boyle often lets his actors control the rhythm of the scenes, generally disappearing behind them for half-hours at a time until you start noticing all of the dutch angles once again. There are a few good gags sprinkled throughout, including one about Oasis that eventually undoes itself later on in the film, and Curtis, for all of his faults, can still write compelling, if corny, dialogue. But if you want to experience the best form of Yesterday, just buy the damn soundtrack. I can think of at least ten Beatles cover records that it is better than, and it might break up the monotony of van rides to the kids’ soccer practice, which I’m sure that the target audience of this movie is behind the wheel.
The actual movie, though? It’s pretty shitty!
The chief issue with Yesterday is its high-concept premise, which is smart enough to get butts in seats and attract attention, but is shepherded by a writer actively uninterested in pursuing its premise beyond the most cursory of examinations. Curtis removes all of these things from our world — Beatles, cigarettes, Coke, Harry Potter — and simply suggests that their absence wouldn’t really mean anything in the process. We would accept the substitutes. In his mind, those who have never enjoyed Coke will be perfectly fine with Pepsi, all the Potter fans would find another franchise to enjoy, and those who smoke Marlboros would simply smoke cigars. But to state that those particular things might have been special in their own right, that they might have had an effect beyond simply giving consumers a facsimile of choice, or that the world would ultimately be at somewhat of a loss without any of them is too much for the writer. It’s as if, in It’s a Wonderful Life, Bedford Falls simply stayed the same without George Bailey, the rippling impacts of his absence shrugged away out of sheer laziness on the part of the writer.
And, as such, you really could have made Yesterday about any other band in the world. There’s nothing particularly special about how The Beatles are used here — sure, there’s some iconography tossed around, and the film has descended largely into self-parody by the point that Boyle digitally resurrects one of them — so there’s nothing really tethering the artist to the film, after all. They’re just there to provide a soundtrack that everybody knows and likes, not to have their relevance questioned or confirmed.
Nearly as bad is the fact that Curtis doesn’t see any potential for his story as drama, either, and our leads — once again, I must say that James and Patel are so sweet and earnest that I wish they could have just been in something worthy of their efforts — are thrown into the single-most basic conflict in a film about musicians making it big. That is, that the dude doesn’t realize that his biggest supporter is actually in love with him, and has to run to the train station dramatically when he realizes that he loves her. Somehow, that serves both of them poorly, especially when James gets a sweet and loving boyfriend whom Patel broods over. There is so much material for drama just left on the table because Curtis won’t explore any of his characters beyond their cheapest narrative purpose. Patel’s inner conflict about plagiarizing some of the best pop songwriters of all time is paid lip service, and, for a moment, it looks like characters might hold him accountable for it, but this entire plot-line is resolved in one of the lamest ways possible.
Seriously, in that one scene — which may have brought a lick of integrity to Yesterday — Curtis just wipes his hands of the entire endeavor and just tries his best to wrap things up in the most Jerry Maguire way possible, because he thinks he knows his audience and he thinks they won’t care. That aforementioned moment may be the dumbest thing about the film, but I haven’t even mentioned Curtis’ attempt at music industry satire, given to us in the form of Kate McKinnon and her legion of marketing-focused record label people, who try to strip the “authenticity” of away from Patel’s music. Rob Lowe in Wayne’s World looks like the height of characterization and drama in comparison to whatever Curtis has McKinnon doing here. Finally, it’s not just McKinnon who seems to be playing a sociopath here — Patel’s friends mock him relentlessly in sort of an “opposite day” take on sympathy on the wake of an accident, and Patel himself nearly freaks the fuck out on his parents when he’s playing “Let it Be” on the family piano and gets interrupted. It’s all very, very odd, but, then again, it’s The Beatles? Who gives a shit!
It’s a shame: There’s so much potential for a lovely romantic comedy here, and there’s also so much potential for a great work of arts criticism and fiction as well, but Curtis really doesn’t want this to be anything more than the most basic, mediocre version of itself. Yesterday uses the Beatles’ “brand” as a form of cultural bell that, when rung, unleashes a sort of combination Pavlovian salivation and intense nostalgia. After all, if you loved the Fab Four, it’s impossible not to bring your own lived experience and connections to their music to the table when you hear their songs. That’s a bond between a culture and a group of artists that is, ultimately, worthy of much more respect than what is put on display here. Perhaps one day, we’ll get a Beatles movie worthy of standing up to the likes of A Hard Day’s Night or even Help!, but Yesterday is nearly as bad as all of its predecessors. Make way for tomorrow.