Review: Yesterday | 3 out 4 Stars | Rated PG-13
By Kyle Osborne
At its core, Yesterday is a sweet British rom-com with one helluva soundtrack. If the news of the world and the current state of affairs have got you down, this good natured confection might be the perfect antidote, just be sure to check your cynicism at the door. It asks a lot of your willingness to suspend disbelief.
Himesh Patel plays Jack Malik, an aspiring singer-songwriter who has yet to find success beyond his pub gigs in his coastal English town. He enjoys the support of a few loyal friends and, in particular, the devotion of his childhood best friend, Ellie (a pitch perfect Lily James,). Director Danny Boyle, isn’t going for subtlety here—he lets us see right away that Ellie has a thing for Jack, but he just doesn’t see it. Will he ever wake up to what’s right in front of him? Will she ever speak up? No fair telling.
And here’s where you just have to sit back and go with the plot device in the same way you did with 1988’s Big, for example. Just. Go. With. It. Riding his bike home from a gig one night, the whole world loses electricity at the same time–just for a few seconds or so. At that exact moment, Jack gets hit by a bus and wakes up to discover (in a way that you can see in the trailer below) that The Beatles have never existed. Nobody but he knows of their huge catalog of songs… which means that he can pass off tunes like, well, like “Yesterday” and “She Loves You” and dozens of others, as his own.
And now, our rom-com takes a musical detour. Jack becomes a huge star and gets a big time manager, played by SNL’s Kate McKinnon in a performance that’s quite funny at first, but becomes a one note role after a while. Ed Sheeran fares better playing himself in a self-deprecating shot. The question is not whether Jack will shake hands with the devil and get the musical fame he’s dreamt of all these years. The question is what is he willing to give up in exchange?
Screenwriter Richard Curtis (Love Actually and Four Weddings and A Funeral and Bridget Jones’ Diary) has a lifetime of experience making us fall in love with the characters in his comedies, and he deftly handles the moral questions facing Jack, so that his choices always make sense. If elements feel a bit familiar, and they do, it doesn’t seem like a bad thing. Yesterday gives us what we want from a film like this.
Now, about The Beatles. This concept would probably not have worked using any other band. Their songs are so well known, so ingrained in our collective psyches over the course of multiple generations, that we easily believe how they would be instantly loved the world over, no matter the year or the singer. And you don’t have to know the history of The Beatles, but the movie has dozens of Easter eggs for those who do. I won’t spoil them here.
Finally, Himesh Patel’s performance should, in a perfect world, elevate his status and casting opportunities. He’s cute and clever, and a pretty damn good singer, too.
Kyle Osborne