One of the first things you see when leaving the John Lennon Airport in Liverpool is a large sculpture of a yellow submarine. What if there was a parallel world where The Beatles never happened? Maybe in that world, the airport is named after Ian Broudie of The Lightning Seeds, and the sculpture is of the ferry that Gerry and the Pacemakers sang about so famously instead.
This is the idea behind Danny Boyle’s “Yesterday,” written by Richard Curtis. It’s a high concept romantic comedy that invites us to picture a world where The Beatles have mysteriously ceased to exist, but one struggling musician still remembers all their songs…
It’s a great idea, and it takes you down a rabbit hole of almost endless possibilities. There are potential themes of authorship, creativity, the cost of fame, plagiarism, guilt, among many others. It’s just a shame that Curtis only spent about ten minutes thinking about it when he hashed out his screenplay. It almost feels like an early draft rushed into production before he had time to flesh out the details. The script only explores the concept in the most superficial way possible.
Himesh Patel plays Jack Malik, a twenty-something singer/songwriter who is struggling to make a name for himself. He plays to tiny crowds at festivals, lives at home with his folks, and works wholesale to make ends meet. The only person who believes in his talent is his part-time manager Ellie (Lily James), an optimistic schoolteacher by day.
Things take a “Twilight Zone”-ish turn when the whole world suffers a freak 12-second power outage, during which Jack gets hit by a bus. After he awakes in the hospital, a few plot points make him realise that suddenly nobody has ever heard of The Beatles or their music.
Spotting an opportunity, Jack scribbles down the lyrics to every Beatles tune he can remember and starts passing them off as his own. However, the songs on their own are no magic bullet and his career remains in the doldrums.
Luckily, local superstar Ed Sheeran (playing himself effectively) swoops in and propels Jack to stardom, inviting him to play as his supporting act in Moscow. Jack gets picked up by Ed’s ruthless manager Debra (Kate McKinnon, having a blast), and is flown over to Los Angeles to continue his meteoric rise.
This is when “Yesterday” falls apart. In what only seems like a few months in the movie, Jack obtains the same level of stardom and pop culture saturation as the actual Beatles took years to achieve. It begs the question: would these songs, shorn of the personalities and influences that created them, written in a completely different era, without the same musicianship and revolutionary production value behind the lyrics, sung by a mediocre no-name artist, still become part of our collective consciousness?
The early scenes of Jack’s parallel world suggest Curtis might have some interest in trying to tackle these questions. Jack’s friends think “Yesterday” is pretty nice, but not exactly Coldplay. His parents get distracted when he tries singing “Let it Be” to them. Early pub performances fall on deaf ears.
In Jack Barth’s original screenplay, the protagonist still never found fame and fortune. Only when Curtis bought it and rewrote it did Jack find the path of least resistance to the Big Time. That departure from the real world into wish-fulfillment fantasy is what causes the film to nose-dive into total implausibility.
Any high concept comedy requires suspension of disbelief. Yet if the writing is good, we can buy into almost anything. What if a mean guy got stuck reliving the same day over and over until he learned how to be a good person? One of the reasons “Groundhog Day” is a modern classic is because the screenplay is so well developed. It fully explores all the concept’s possibilities, taking Bill Murray’s character through an array of emotions before he finally finds redemption.
“Yesterday” does no such thing, and Jack’s journey is incredibly one-note. Patel tries his best to give the character some charm and personality in his film debut, but the writing leaves him nothing to work with. Jack is miserable and whiny when he is a struggling singer. He is miserable and moany when no one wants to listen to The Beatles songs he claims as his own. He is miserable and conflicted when he suddenly gets rich and famous. It’s not much of an arc and it makes it very difficult to get on board with him, or comprehend why the lovable, understanding Ellie sees anything in him.
The details all seem a little off. I’m not even a Beatles nerd, but are we to believe that “I Saw Her Standing There” would get a modern audience rocking? And also appear on Jack’s debut album alongside “Hey Jude”…come on, seriously?
Then in this non-Beatles world, Oasis also don’t exist. Hilarious, right? Wouldn’t it have been more interesting if, say, they did still exist, but now found influence from The Rolling Stones? Maybe get a clip of Liam Gallagher busting some Mick Jagger moves on stage?
There are a few neat touches, like a record label exec rejecting Jack’s album name suggestions, kicking out Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (too long, too weird) and “The White Album” (too white). Mostly it just trundles along in Curtis’s typically cosy, light-hearted register; it takes place in a strangely muted version of his usual middle-class wonderland.
It also doesn’t help that Danny Boyle puts in the most lethargic directorial performance of his career. He is usually so kinetic, but his flashy, upbeat style is rarely apparent here. It’s almost as if he directs the movie like Richard Curtis, and we get nothing visually to emulate the sheer energy of a Beatles tune. Just think about the similarities between the opening scenes of “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Trainspotting…” what could have Boyle brought to the material if he really cut loose?
Lily James is the sole bright spot in this mushy, unfocused mess. She’s such an appealing actor, effortlessly warm and relatable. She deserves better than to just play the love interest to Patel’s selfish, ungrateful character. Other than her… how about Ed Sheeran? When Sheeran is one of the better things in a movie, you know something is terribly wrong…
“Yesterday” is currently available to watch or rent on most streaming services.
