Maybe if Yesterday was more of a comedy and less a moral dramedy it might have been more fun to watch. One of the better scenes in the movie was when Ed Sheeran, playing himself, questions the title Hey Jude. Who's Jude? He asks. Maybe Hey Dude?
It is pretty hard to imagine one person, especially of rather dubious talent like Jack, remembering all the lyrics to so many Beatles songs word for word. I don't think Sir Paul McCartney could recall his entire catalog and he wrote most of the songs, although he gave the film his quiet endorsement. Beyond the first stanza, that's all I remember of Yesterday, and I have a pretty good memory. I can recite almost the entire lyrics to American Pie, although not exactly in order. So, it probably would have made more sense if Jack did a little more ad libbing. After all who would know the difference except the two sad souls Jack eventually meets who also remember the Beatles.
Jack's massive memory doesn't go to waste. His darling Ellie lines someone up to record his new songs and as luck would have it, Ed Sheeran happens to hear one of these songs and takes Jack under his wing. However, Ed soon realizes who the real genius is here, when Jack recalls The Long and Winding Road in an impromptu song challenge and afterward devotes himself to making Jack a star with the help of his goofy LA agent played by Kate McKinnon.
I didn't get what Rocky's role in all this was? If anyone should have been touring with Jack it was Ellie, especially after she did so much to promote him. Instead, she sticks to her classroom of adorable teenagers. I suppose Rocky was supposed to provide badly needed comic relief, but in this regard he failed.
It's nice to hear so many Beatles' songs in raw form. Himesh Patel really does a good job here, but that's about as far as his performance goes. The rest of the time, he is playing the dorky twenty-something adrift in the world, not sure what to make of his relationship with Ellie, whom he has known since childhood. Elementary school, I believe, when he impressed her with a version of Oasis' Wonderwall at a school concert. Turns out Oasis has been erased too, but Jack sticks with the Beatles.
The film is so typical of British rom-coms that you know exactly what is going to happen from one scene to the next, but that's not really the point. Danny Boyle would like you to believe that the songs would have made a lasting impact whether or not they were sung by the Beatles, so he gives us the unlikely hero Jack to show the world (literally) once again how great these songs are. Funny enough there was no USSR either, as he sings the Beatles' eponymous song to an ecstatic Russian audience in Moscow. How lucky they were!
If you are a Beatles fan you won't argue. Their albums consistently rank in the Top Ten of virtually anyone's list, which means there are a hell of a lot of Beatles fans out there. Unfortunately, I'm not one, and I've lost internet friends over this. There are songs I like of their's, but if I was to make a Desert Island Playlist it wouldn't include the Beatles, except maybe Octopus' Garden, which oddly enough didn't make the cut in this film. All though, I believe it was mentioned.
The thing is Jack didn't need to choose between stardom and Ellie. The whole story could have stayed within the comfortable confines of Suffolk and had the same impact. We didn't need Ed or Kate, or the improbable tag-a-long Rocky. It would have been enough for Jack to try to woo Ellie with Beatles' songs that no one else remembered.
Or, he could have dug into the archive of any decade and pulled out songs his Suffolk audience would at best only faintly recalled. So many bands are lost in time. Great ones too. How many persons recall Jethro Tull? Certainly not Millennials today, which is who this movie is aimed at. But then I guess Yesterday does sound better than Locomotive Breath as a title.
Nope, it is just another attempt to drive home how great the Beatles are, and what a shame it would have been if John Lennon never took up a guitar but instead lived out his life as anonymous painter. A truly cringeworthy scene in which Jack finally determines he has to come clean about the music on the eve of launching his epochal double album, and give all his love to Ellie. No spoiler alerts necessary.
A lot of viewers saw this as a great surprise, but like everything else in the movie, you knew it was coming. Danny Boyle had to pay tribute to the most revered Beatle of them all and what better way than to make him a quiet artist living out his life on a remote English seacoast, with no Yoko belting out arcane sounds in the background. The only thing surprising was to learn it was Robert Carlyle under all that make up and round glasses. To hell with fame and fortune. The most important thing is to be true to yourself. Isn't it lovely?
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