"Yesterday" (2019): What Works/What Doesn't

What if The Beatles never existed?

Welcome to the first of a new series called “Characters (that worked) and Subplots (that didn’t).”

For regular readers of Beth’s TV & Film Recommendations (formerly Beth’s Exceptional Video Playlist), here’s what you can expect:

• No disruption to current Wednesday reviews

• Twice a month you will receive bonus posts as part of this series.

• Informal, relatively short, and witty reviews (naturally)

• Occasional collaborators and experts weighing in - Interested? 👇🏻

• You help me pick the shows and films that I review by leaving a comment 👇🏻

Synopsis

Yesterday (2019), on Netflix, is a dramedy that centers around Jack Malik, a British musician (Himesh Patel, Good Grief) “everyman” struggling to make it commercially. Ellie (Lily James, Pam & Tommy), his devoted agent and ride-or-die unwaveringly believes in his abilities. She’s also literally his ride since he doesn’t drive.

In a fantastical, surreal turn of events, there is a global power failure in which The Beatles, the iconic band, have been obliterated from the annals of history. Only Jack, and a few others, have any recollection of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. As a side note, Patel’s vocals on beloved Beatles songs are wonderfully done. Director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting) knew he was the perfect Jack Malik from the moment Patel sang his soulful acoustic cover of “Back in the USSR” in the audition.

For an informative and engaging read on the origins of the real song “Yesterday” by The Beatles, on which the film is named, be sure to read this.

Characters - That Aren’t the Leads (That Work)

• Ed Sheeran, that pop star has a rather large cameo proving he can act and should add EGOT goals to his vision board. In the film, Ed Sheeran is a mentor to Jack and the catalyst for “Malik-Mania,” bringing Jack on tour to open for him in Russia, where Jack performs The Beatles songs. A quintessential scene in the film is the “song-off” between Sheeran and Jack, in which they both are subject to scribe a song in a few minutes and then perform it as part of a competition, initiated by Sheeran. Performing a rendition of “The Long & Winding Road,” Jack easily wins and garners the attention of Sheeran’s agent, Debra Hammer (Kate McKinnon).

• Kate McKinnon (SNL, Barbie) is the ruthless L.A. music agent, Debra Hammer. It’s a character you would otherwise detest, but McKinnon plays her with enough comedic gusto and candor that even when she’s saying pretty horrific stuff to Jack to goad him into doubting himself in a bid to make a lot of money off of him, you still can’t get enough of her. Her rather harsh disrobing of Jack in the clip below explains why she’s on the list of standouts.

Subplots (That Didn’t)

There weren’t a ton of weak subplots in the film, but here are a few:

• The Beatles People: Apart from Jack, there are a few other people that remember The Beatles (we’ll call them “The Beatles People”), but why? For Jack, we’re led to believe that he is able to recall a world in which The Beatles once existed because he was hit by a bus and subsequently left unconscious at the exact moment of the global electrical failure in which every conscious person forgot The Beatles and the band was wiped off the face of the earth. Jack’s unconscious state left him immune to this effect. When “The Beatles People” are on screen, the movie hints at something sinister afoot, as if they pose either a physical or existential threat to Jack, like at any second they will expose Jack for the fraud that he is. This doesn’t come to fruition though for at the end of the movie, in a wildly unlikely plot twist, they all band together in a show of support for Jack at his concert. Their rationale? The world is better off with the music of The Beatles. Can’t argue there, but really this didn’t make sense. Jack’s capitalizing off of The Beatles and “The Beatles People” not feeling the teensiest bit of greed and acting on it seems too unbelievable.

• John Lennon’s Show Up: At a critical endpoint in the film, Jack goes on a pilgrimage to visit John Lennon. I found the entire trek to John Lennon and the subsequent visit, lacking. Yes, it’s heartening to think that there is a John Lennon in the world in 2019 who is first off, living and secondly, just a regular “Joe” or “John” who Jack can shoot the shit with. I will give you that. And ultimately it’s this experience with John that prompts Jack to go be with Ellie, but it was a misspent diversion. Perhaps, director Danny Boyle could have achieved the same effect without employing an actor (Robert Carlyle, Trainspotting and Rumpelstiltskin in Once Upon a Time) playing Lennon. It was like they needed a quick way to wrap up the movie. Still, it leads one down a cerebral path of what-ifs which is what it was playing for.

• Beatles writer/scholar

  Faith Current
  who is currently at work on a podcast/book about Lennon/McCartney weighs in:

  A universe in which John isn’t murdered and is living happily as an artist is a good thing, obviously, but it’s worth keeping in mind that the scene is probably based on a quote from John [that I don’t have on hand] about how he wished he could live in a house in the woods and paint all day. If he really wanted to do that, he could have at any point and didn’t and I doubt it would have made him happy. John was born to lead a revolution and he knew that from an early age, it seems. And a universe in which he doesn’t meet Paul, the other half of his soul, whom John once described as the love of his life? I’m not sure about how good a thing that is.

The Iconic Band

• The Beatles Impact on Culture: The film makes mention of how many of our cultural artifacts wouldn’t be if The Beatles never were. The drink Coca-Cola, the band Oasis (particularly funny), cigarettes and even Harry Potter. There’s no question that The Beatles were foundational.

  What would be left of our current culture without The Beatles?

  Here’s what

  Faith Current
  had to say:

  They [The Beatles] invented almost every modern music genre, in one form or another, and influenced the others.  Revolutionized how that music was composed and recorded and shared and listened to. But more than that, their influence is felt in virtually every aspect of our culture, from art and fashion to social justice and politics, which is why their story, as well as their music, is essentially the origin story of our modern culture.

  On that scene where Jack plays “Yesterday” for Ellie and it’s compared to the music of Coldplay:

  [The line in the film] “It’s not Coldplay” doesn’t land, because it misses the vital payoff that there wouldn’t be a Coldplay (whatever you think of them) without The Beatles, that literally not a single note of any music that we listen to today with any degree of regularity would exist as it does or even at all —  including also Ed Sheeran, btw — without the revolution that the Beatles sparked. There is no other artist in history who comes close to their influence. 

• The backstory of Eleanor Rigby. In the film, Jack is able to easily recall most of The Beatles songs (lyrics and notes) but the one evading him is “Eleanor Rigby” (one of my favorites). In some of the movie’s most poignant scenes, he goes to Liverpool and visits landmarks like Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields and the grave of the real Eleanor Rigby to jog his memory.

  What’s your favorite Beatles song and why?