Yesterday

Movie, 2019, PG-13

Premise - A down-and-out musician decides to give up on his failing music dreams. After a power outage, he finds himself in a world where nobody but him remembers the band the Beatles. Seeing his miracle opportunity, he starts passing off the Beatles songs as his own and becomes a musical sensation overnight.

Review - This is such a weirdly specific alternate universe. I just love how creative, random, and bizarre the premise is. Just reading the two sentence summary alone is enough to make anyone curious to watch the movie. On top of that, it was written by Richard Curtis, who is known for writing some of the most successful and smart British comedies of the era (my favorite being About Time, which, like this movie, has a element of magical realism or fantasy to it).

The supporting cast is full of stars. The female love interest is played by Lily James, who is impossible not to love. I always step away from her performances just entranced by her beauty and inspired by her style. Her character in this had the most adorable hair and outfits. Then we also had Ed Sheeran (playing a hilarious fictitious version of himself) and Kate McKinnon as his manager. The star of the film, however, is someone I did not recognize. This was his first ever feature film. But he was so INCREDIBLY lovable. I think it's because Richard Curtis has locked down a formula for writing his male protagonists. Like the lead in About Time, he is a bit awkward, self-deprecating, sometimes pessimistic, unobtrusive, and simply likeable but a little bit of a failure. The film is also just inherently awkward. There are so, SO many interrupted moments and conversations that the main character is never given enough time to just think and process the insanity of his situation. It drives the main character mad and as an audience you empathize so deeply with his being overwhelmed.

And if I wasn't impressed enough by his performance, his singing was absolutely wonderful. (I'm saying this under the assumption that the actor did the singing, which I'm not actually sure. But whoever did it was fantastic and, with a modern ear, prefer these covers over the originals).

I'm not a Beatles fan by any means, yet time and time again found myself going "Oh hey, I know that song!" because the Beatles are just impossible to avoid in pop culture. The film gave a newfound appreciation for the band that I always new was important historically, but hadn't really absorbed how great the songs are even now. Part of the point is that, in 2019, if people heard these songs for the first time they would be just as in love with them now as they were then. And funnily enough, that's sort of what happened to me as this movie was my first exposure to a few Beatles songs I hadn't heard before. A bit meta, huh?

It's a Beatles tribute film that is so much more powerful than, say, an autobiographical film would have been. And it's just so bizarrely funny. There were a few digs made at the songs that I would consider some of the best written and culturally important of my time, and I found that hilarious. Wonderwall by Oasis was made fun of for being a Beatles ripoff, as in this alternate universe where the Beatles don't exist, naturally Oasis does not either. Also, when Jack plays Yesterday for the first time and says it's one of the best songs ever written, Ellie says, "It's not Fix You by Coldplay" and Jack is so insulted. Every joke made was to overstate the importance of the Beatles in order for the film to function, and it was done so well. (93/100)


Quote - "The world is full of miracles." "Like what?" "Benedict Cumberbatch becoming a sex symbol"


What to watch for - I just love all of the covers so much. Particularly the performances of Yesterday and Help Me! Still not over the fact that they changed Hey Jude to Hey Dude to fit in with 2019 trends.

If you liked this movie, I'd recommend About Time!

Directed by Danny Boyle
Distributed by Universal