Movie Review: Yesterday

Yesterday (2019) 

Directed by Danny Boyle 

Written by Richard Curtis 

Starring Himesh Patel, Lily James, Joel Fry, Ed Sheeran, Kate McKinnon 

Release Date June 28th, 2019 

Published June 27th, 2019

Yesterday was a complete delight. Directed by the ingenious Danny Boyle, Academy Award winner for Slumdog Millionaire, and Love, Actually writer-director Richard Curtis, Yesterday is charming, romantic, and quite funny. The acting is wonderful as well with a core duo of newcomer Hamish Patel and Lily James providing romantic and friendly chemistry that leaps off of the screen. All of that, and some of the greatest music of all time and Yesterday becomes irresistible. 

Jack Malik (Patel) has spent 10 years trying to make his music industry dreams come true with no success, but with his trusted friend and manager Ellie (James) always at his side. Despite Ellie’s constant support, Jack finally appears ready to give up his dream and return to teaching when something dramatic happens. On his way home from his last gig, Jack gets in an accident just as all of the electricity on the planet goes out for 12 seconds. 

When Jack wakes up in the hospital the following day, minus his front teeth, he makes a reference to The Beatles that Ellie dismisses in unusual fashion. Later, after Ellie gives Jack a guitar to replace the one he lost in the accident, Jack goes to play “Yesterday” by The Beatles and his friends react as if they have never heard the song before. A confused Jack returns home in a rush and begins googling The Beatles only to find that they no longer exist in any way. 

Apparently being the only person on the planet who remembers The Beatles songs, Jack decides to start performing Beatles songs from memory, not without a serious struggle, as if he had written them. Jack finds success in a fashion not unlike the Fab Four, with a brief struggle and then a massive breakout, all while Jack wrestles with his conscience over the decision to capitalize off of someone else's art and his relationship with Ellie which he has misjudged for the past 20 years. 

Director Danny Boyle is a directorial chameleon, leaping from genre to genre, country to country and masterwork to mediocrity. Yesterday, thankfully, is in the masterwork category. While the movie is minor in social relevance, unlike his Steve Jobs or Slumdog Millionaire, it is masterful as a work of genre. Yesterday is gloriously, ridiculously, heart on its sleeve romantic in ways that modern Hollywood has struggled to be for decades. 

Much of the credit, of course, goes to screenwriter Richard Curtis, who has been at the forefront of the romance genre since the 90’s and the release of his Four Weddings and a Funeral. Curtis is a genius at giving a unique spin to the romantic cliches that are at the heart of the romance genre dating back to the early days of sound in film. What makes Yesterday even more unique is Curtis teaming with a visual master like Danny Boyle who places Curtis’s big romantic ideas into a wonderfully visual, eye-catching package. 

Of course, both Boyle and Curtis are helped by the fact that they have somehow secured the chance to use some of the greatest music of all time to tell their story. It’s famously not easy to get the rights to use the music of The Beatles in a project but the team of Boyle and Curtis were apparently enough to get this movie a break. Of course, I am sure, $10 million dollars in rights fees also helped their case. 

The music in Yesterday isn’t used as you might think. You might assume that Jack deploys the songs in a specific fashion related to his place within the story. Instead, the movie subverts expectations by having Jack simply record Beatles songs in an almost random order, just as he is able to remember them. It’s a clever approach that allows the story to exist outside of The Beatles. Was this done in case the producers could not get the rights to The Beatles and they acted accordingly in building the story? Perhaps, but the approach works nevertheless. 

The supporting cast of Yesterday is exceptionally well chosen. Kate McKinnon of Saturday Night Live fame plays Jack’s new, high powered manager who treats him like dirt even as she is giving him worldwide fame. McKinnon’s oddball dialogue which combines radical honesty with a sociopathic zeal, rarely fails to get a laugh in Yesterday. It’s a brilliant comic performance. McKinnon is backed up by pop star Ed Sheeran who sheds all pop star ego to play himself as a fan of Jack who is willing to compare himself to Salieri to Jack’s Amadeus in one particularly great scene. 

Yesterday, as I said at the start, is a complete delight. It’s a delight for any audience that gives it a chance but it is a special treat for fans of The Beatles. Yesterday is a love letter to The Beatles that balances idolatry and fandom without becoming overly precious. Yes, the film is entirely uncritical of The Beatles but it felt to me like a genuine appreciation and not overly worshipful. The Beatles are only part of this story and not the entirety of it. 

The heart of Yesterday is the romance between Jack and Ellie and the struggle to escape preconceived notions of romance and friendship. There is a warmth and complexity to Jack and Ellie’s relationship that I bought into simply because I loved these two actors so very much. Hamish Patel and Lily James are just wonderful together and I fully believed in their choices, from Jack being blind to Ellie’s feelings to her heartache and his revelation. It’s a simple but well portrayed arc and I think everyone who loves a good love story will appreciate it as much as I did. 

I was a little worried by the trailer for the film that Yesterday would simply be a movie with a clever premise and little more. What a wonderful thing to have all of my worries dashed in the first few scenes and then to grow more and more comfortably immersed in this movie as it unfolded. Yesterday invites you in and if you are open to it, especially if you love this music, and you simply fall in love with it. Yesterday is just so darn charming.