I believe in Yesterday: It’s a must-see
The “alternate fiction” genre has grown in popularity in recent years, with books, movies, and TV shows positing questions like, “What if Hitler had never been born?” or “What if JFK hadn’t been shot?” as starting points for fresh and creative stories. Director Danny Boyle and screenwriters Jack Barth and Richard Curtis throw their hat into the ring with Yesterday, a movie that asks, “What if only one person on earth knew who the Beatles were?” The filmmakers have great fun answering the question, but, make no mistake: this is no sci-fi film. What Boyle has given us here is an old-fashioned romantic comedy — and an exceptionally charming one at that — just wrapped in a unique narrative package.
Writer Richard Curtis is no stranger to romantic comedies. Having penned the classic British films Love Actually, Notting Hill, and Four Weddings and a Funeral, creating pleasing British rom-coms is what Curtis does best. TV writer Barth and director Boyle (Steve Jobs; Slumdog Millionaire; 127 Hours) team with Curtis to bring us an original take on the genre. Yesterday feels new, while still retaining the affable, appealing sensibility of Curtis’s best known films.
Newcomer Himesh Patel plays Jack Malik, a struggling singer/songwriter who lives with his parents in Suffolk and makes ends meet by working in a Costco-type store. He’s managed by Ellie (Lily James), his best friend and biggest champion since his middle school talent show days. One evening, while riding his bike home, Jack gets hit by a bus at the same moment a strange, world-wide, 12-second power outage hits. After recovering, Jack plays “Yesterday” for his friends, only to have them, amazed, ask when he wrote the song. Irritated and thinking they are pranking him, Jack realizes they’re being honest about their ignorance after he Googles the Beatles and retrieves only information on the actual insect. A second search for “John Paul George Ringo” brings up Pope John Paul.
Internet searches sometimes seem like lazy devices in films for characters to quickly discover information, but the device works well here, drawing a lot of laughs as the unexpected images Jack sees on his screen appear on ours, too. And, in an especially funny running gag, a number of other famous people and things come up during the course of the film that also seem to have similarly vanished from the planet, each lending itself to a laugh-inducing Google query. I won’t spoil the fun by listing them all here, but here’s one example: When Jack’s mother looks at him blankly when he asks her for a Coke instead of a Pepsi, he runs to his computer, only to find that all that comes up for “coke” are Pablo Escobar links.
But the fun doesn’t stop there. Curtis and Barth pack their script with delightful jokes and gentle satire about the music business. When Jack finally gets some attention after singing the Beatles’ songs, he’s noticed by none other than Ed Sheeran (who proves himself a sly comedian, unafraid to poke fun at himself). Sheeran both takes Jack on tour as his opening act, and sets him up with his ruthless manager, Debra (a haughtily acerbic Kate McKinnon). Success quickly follows, with all its attendant pitfalls and stress. Watching how music execs react to some of the Beatles songs in a marketing meeting is a particular highlight; when Jack proposes “The White Album” as the title for his new album, he’s met with criticism that the title “lacks diversity.” Jokes like these pervade the film, and elicit genuine laugh after genuine laugh.
This picture is the sort that makes you want to run home and tell your friends all the best lines and gags, but I’ll refrain from sharing more, and tell you to do yourself a favor and just go see it. Beatles fans especially will appreciate the picture, sure, but you don’t need to be an expert on the band’s catalog to enjoy the premise and its humor here. Patel has a great voice and does justice to the sacred songs, and his chemistry with James is terrific. Usually in a romantic comedy you find yourself favoring one of the lead pair over the other, but here Jack and Ellie are each so down to earth, sincere, and likable that we root for both of them, and want to spend more time with both — separately and together.
And McKinnon nails her role as the greedy manager, spitting out some of the script’s most cutting lines with deadpan hilarity. Joel Fry (Game of Thrones) also has a nice turn as Jack’s slacker friend and roadie, whose flakiness belies a fundamental decency.
As you watch Jack’s rise to the top, of course you will wonder how the film will end: will the world suddenly get its collective memory back? What happens to Jack if it does? The filmmakers throw in a few characters who seem to know Jack’s secret… or do they? And, if they do, what will they do about it? This tension just adds to our enjoyment of the film, which also includes a poignant surprise moment that brought a tear to this critic’s eye. Smart and funny, the picture’s exploration of truth, creativity, success, and romance never feels heavy-handed — only honest and thoughtful. An absolute delight, Yesterday is already one of the best films of the summer. So with apologies to Lennon-McCartney: Try to see it my way/Do I have to keep on talking ‘til I can’t go on?/Go see this movie before it’s gone/Life is very short and there’s no time/for bad movies.
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Yesterday opens today at Bay Area theaters.
