Yesterday

Regardless of any criticism this movie may receive from me or anybody else, I am pretty confident that no other movie this year is going to get me as excited for a really original plot this year than Yesterday. And I don't think I'm the only one. I know a ton of people who would never see a smaller indie film like this in theaters who rushed out to see this one, simply based on the plot. This movie was never going to be number one, it was running against Toy Story 4. But I know a lot of people who heard about this movie via social media or just word of mouth, and got really excited to see it. Again, despite any criticisms, the concept is really unique.

Yesterday follows the story of Jack Malik (played by Himesh Patel), a wannabe musician who is struggling to really garner any support or following of his music career. His manager Ellie (played by Lily James), who is obviously in love with him (we'll get to that), tells him he has to continue trying and that he'll get there but Jack is very close to quitting and going back to a normal, non-performing life.

Until one day, there is a black out and Jack is hit by a bus. When he recovers, he realizes that there are a few things off, most notably that nobody can remember who the Beatles are or know any of their music.

And while this was already an interesting concept, the movie actually doubles down on it in a unique way by saying, not only can nobody remember who the Beatles are, there are a couple of other things that people don't remember. I won't give it away because it does lead to some actually pretty funny jokes throughout the film, but it does add to some interesting ideas of the world and that it's not simply the Beatles that were erased from existence for the sole sake of the plot.

As a result, once Jack realizes that nobody knows who The Beatles are, he decides he's going to pass the songs off as his own and use them as one last attempt to start up his music career.

The problem is that he has to remember all as many Beatles songs as he can, get the lyrics right, and reconcile the fact that he seems to be coming up with this music almost prodigal-like.

Eventually he's noticed, garners a lot of support through the viral spread of the music, and he gets the attention of Ed Sheeran and his manager (played almost cartoonishly by Kate Mckinnon) and he's prompted to release a world bending album with music that isn't his.

This, of course, prompts the question of the morality of passing the music off as his own as well as some drama of him becoming a huge star almost over night and leaving the world that made him behind him.

I think one of my biggest gripes with the movie is for how original and unique the plot is, there are a lot of formulaic conventions you'd see in almost every story about a struggling musician making it big.

Some aren't as in your face obvious, but there's the push and pull of having a normal life and being rich and famous. The problem, is I don't feel like Jack really changes that much from his beginnings, because he is struggling with the morality of passing these songs off as his own. So his conflict of reconciling his famous persona with his down to earth humble beginnings sometimes doesn't work out as smoothly as I think they were planning.

Also, lets talk about Lily James.

Lily James plays Jack's friend, who is also his manager and I think half of the reason people are going to like these two is due to the fact that they're attractive people and I think there's an inherent desire for attractive people who shoot doe eyes at each other to get together. And it doesn't help that Lily James is adorable in this movie.

But in reality, Ellie is not a particularly interesting character and she's so obviously in love with Jack from the get go that it kind of makes you think that Jack is a bit of a moron for not realizing that his friend is clearly in love with him. Luckily, the love story is really secondary to the more interesting plot of Jack playing music and maneuvering the music world, but the movie slows down a little bit when Lily James is just waiting for her man and not adding a whole lot else to the plot.

In the realm of the music world, the movie provides some really interesting characters. Like Kate Mckinnon, who is not even trying to hide the fact that she's the musical manager who only cares about money and is clearly the bad guy in the film.

When I reviewed Ghostbusters, I said that I really liked Mckinnon's performance and she was very strange for the sake of being strange. I've watched a few other movies with her since and I'm realizing that Mckinnnon doesn't really have any other character other than the weird cartoon, probably lesbian, eccentric type. And she does a very similar character in this film too. On one hand, she's a caricature that does have some funny moments, and it moves away from the stereotypical ways this movie could have gone. On the other hand, there is no depth to her character whatsoever. Her only motivation is money... that's it. She literally has a line where she yells, "IN THE NAME OF MONEY". There really isn't much depth there.

The other funny part about the music industry side of this is how comfortable this movie is with shitting on Ed Sheeran for literally no reason.

Ed Sheeran plays himself. He finds Jack, wants him to join his tour as his opener and quickly realizes that Jack's songs are amazing. And again, on one hand, it sort of subverts typical music movie tropes because Sheeran doesn't get jealous or try to sabotage Jack. They could have easily written him as a rival musician who just wants to see Jack fail when he realizes his songs are better.

However, the movie is not shy about painting him as this sad sap who will never reach Beatles level of impact on the musical world. Like I get that that's a high bar and Sheeran probably doesn't think of himself on that level anyway, but in making him a nice guy who is overly supportive of Jack, he's just kind of the womp womp character of the movie who recommends that Jack change Hey Jude to Hey Dude. Like he just comes off as a moron.

And I feel bad, because I have found nothing to support the idea that Ed Sheeran deserves to be shit on this much by the general public. I guess its cool that he sort of leans into it in this movie but that was just something I found a little weird with the movie.

The more interesting part of Yesterday was the discussion held on the way music is produced and distributed in today's world. The movie really leans heavily on the impact the music of the Beatles had on the music industry as it is today and how different 4 guys recording ground breaking music is from today where its more collaborative and utilizes technology more than pure composing.

I do think the movie puts Beatles music on an almost god-like pedestal. There's even a moment where Jack says, it's not that different from other composers like James Taylor, the Stones, or other artists who write their own music, but the movie seems to allude that if the Beatles were released to do, it would be like the second coming of Christ. Jack is even referred to as Jesus in comparison to Ed Sheeran, who again, the movie just continues to shit on in comparison to Beatles music.

I'm not saying the music of the Beatles wasn't revolutionary. I'm just saying I don't know if its totally believable that their music is totally impervious to the totally different music culture it is today. I half expected there to be a kind of melancholy ending, as if the music would be a big hit but be sold off as a fad of the moment, saying something about how small our attention spans are. Or that the music wouldn't hit the same tone due to the over saturation of today's music industry. The movie continuously reminds us that the music of the Beatles was revolutionary, but I don't know if it really delves into why as much as I would have liked it to.

At the end of the day, Yesterday is the story of a guy in a really unique conundrum of whether or not he should take credit for music that isn't his. And it's done well enough.

The movie is entertaining, and I really liked Himesh Patel's performance. One really great part of this movie is that you do see the conundrum weighing on him the entire movie and I think he's a great vehicle for the audience through this super unique story concept.

 I wouldn't say his renditions of classic Beatles songs are really that extraordinary. Part of me thinks that's the point that the songs themselves are powerful enough to stand the test of time. I think I would have liked to see some creativity with the songs kind of in the same vein that Across the Universe was able to do. I hate to give Across the Universe any credit at all, but it was fascinating seeing a different take on those classic songs but keep the same feeling behind them. But as far as quality of movie goes, Yesterday blows Across the Universe out of the water. Across the Universe sucks.

Overall, Yesterday is by no means a perfect movie and I could point out a few more things that don't work but the reality is, I don't really want to. It was a really interesting concept from start to finish and I enjoyed the crap out of it.

Let me know what you thought of Yesterday. You can comment and discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as requests for other films I should be reviewing in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!