Yesterday
starring Himesh Patel, Lily James, Ed Sheeran and Kate McKinnon
screenplay by Richard Curtis
directed by Danny Boyle
Rating: ♦♦♦♦◊
I learned about this movie in November when a Japanese woman I know flew to visit friends in Michigan, U.S.A. I am always curious about the movies people see on planes, so I ask them, “What movies did you see?” Sometimes I warn them before they depart that I will ask for a full review upon their return. I don’t sleep on airplanes, so I watch movies. Therefore, I expect others do likewise. Believe me, they consistently and universally disappoint me.
Anyway, the only film this woman could remember from her long round-trip flight was Yesterday, which I hadn’t heard of. She remembered it because she is a Beatles fan and a bass player. Without much success she tried explaining it to me, but I figured I’d just have to watch it myself.
Himesh Patel plays Jack Malik, a striving (and failing) musician in England. Failing in his dream to be a professional musician he is encouraged by his schoolmate manager, Ellie Appleton (Lily James). Jack gets hit by a bus during a global, world-wide power black-out, and wakes up in hospital. When he is discharged from hospital, he plays The Beatles hit “Yesterday” on his acoustic guitar for a small group of friends. But nobody recognizes the tune and they congratulate him on a good song. Jack thinks they are putting him on because … well, it’s The Beatles, after all! But they are not putting him on. Jack slowly discovers that he has awoken from his accident into a world in which there were no Beatles. Jack is the only one who knows their music. Whenever he plays a famous Beatles’ hit people eulogize him for his outstanding song writing talent. Rushing to his record library he discoverers all his Beatles albums gone. He Googles them on his computer, but … nothing! The Beatles never existed!
Here is an opportunity for Jack to succeed in music, by playing The Beatles discography as his own. He tries to remember all the lyrics of all the songs and he starts presenting them as his own music. He’s free to do so in this world. He comes to the attention of Ed Sheeran, who first telephones him at his home and then personally drops by Jack’s parents’ house looking for him. Sheeran, playing himself, invites Jack to go on tour with him, and in this way Jack’s dream of being a successful, professional musician takes off.
Jack quickly gets sucked into the vortex of the music business. The fame, the interviews, the performances, the handling (and mishandling) by managers, the contracts, the pressure to record and produce and surpass, the groupies, the hangers-on, the marketing and public relations people, and the money. Money. Money. In Los Angeles, Sheeran's ruthless agent Debra Hammer (Kate McKinnon) signs him to her label and engineers his rise to global fame. He experiences Beatlemania, but instead being diluted among members of a group it’s all focused on him. When he performs “Help” from a rooftop in his hometown you can tell he’s really screaming for help, to be rescued from this state he’s in - which, incidentally, is somewhat what John Lennon was singing about in 1965 when he wrote the song.
Jack keeps coming up with one hit song after another in quick succession. Of course, we know that he’s recalling and playing The Beatles entire discography of a decade of work in a short period of time. People think he’s a genius and the greatest song writer ever. He seems to produce finished, polished, profound hits on the spot.
The culmination of Jack’s success comes when Ed Sheeran arranges for him to play at Wembley Stadium. Jack confesses to the crowd that he actually plagiarized his songs from a group called The Beatles, but it still doesn’t mean anything to the fans, who’ve never hear of the Fab Four.
Jack discovers other cultural icons that have similarly been erased from public consciousness: the band Oasis; Coca-Cola, Harry Potter and cigarettes. The film is clever and funny. But I like things to make sense, and screenwriter Richard Curtis does not explain why or how this Beatles-less world exists. The global power black-out has something to do with it, but it’s never explained, and the movie ends without a resolution. Jack just has to continue living in a world where he’s the only one who knows The Beatles, and Oasis, Harry Potter and cigarettes.