This delightful little gem is the feel-good movie of the year, and it’s a must-see for all of us who grew up with — and will always have a soft spot for — the Beatles.
The premise is brilliant – and utterly random. It revolves around Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), an aspiring singer-songwriter in a small English town, whose only fans are his friends and his manager/girlfriend wannabe, Ellie (Lily James).
After a freak accident during a global power outage, he seems to be the one person in the world who remembers the Beatles. (There are some hilarious moments when he frantically Googles the group, only to be confronted with insects and Pope John Paul.)
He realizes this is an amazing opportunity for him. He starts singing their songs, and it’s surprisingly moving to watch people’s reactions as they hear them for the first time. It may bring you right back to the first time you heard them, too.
Of course, Jack does have an ethical struggle because he’s becoming the biggest star on the planet by taking credit for someone else’s work. In fact, he even beats Ed Sheeran in a songwriting contest by playing The Long and Winding Road, to which Sheeran admits he’s Salieri to Jack’s Mozart.
Yesterday is filled with plot holes and you certainly have to suspend disbelief for it but, really, who cares?
Director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) and writer Richard Curtis (Love Actually, Notting Hill, About Time, Four Weddings and A Funeral, Bridget Jones’ Diary) have created a clever rom-com that, when I saw it, had the audience smiling and singing to themselves throughout the whole movie.
Yesterday is a love letter to the Beatles and to the power of music to bring people together.
It’s hard not to feel nostalgic for the innocence and simply beauty of their songs when so many lyrics today are just crude and explicit and will never be remembered with such affection decades from now — if they’re remembered at all.
The film, too, has an innocence, which was especially welcome after a barrage of trailers for violent action movies which made me long for Yesterday.
This is the kind of movie you see with someone who will appreciate it as much as you do (in other words, probably not your kids) so you can laugh together and relive your own memories.
Thanks to its celebration of music that changed the world forever, oh, I believe in Yesterday.
Leave a Reply