Oddly enough, there are quite a few movies where the primary plot mechanism is some form of acute head trauma that reshapes the main character’s perspective in some way. Look no further than I Feel Pretty (2018) and What Men Want earlier this year as examples of comedies built around that idea. While those films primarily focus on the characters’ internal development, Yesterday expands on the concept in a refreshing and surprisingly hilarious way.
Director Danny Boyle is no stranger to humor but this film was much funnier than I anticipated. The promotions team did a good job of getting the main point across without burning all the funniest moments in the trailers which left plenty of room for growth inside the approximately two-hour runtime. An allegorical approach to a world that has forgotten The Beatles…and many other things, as it turns out…was maybe the only way to have effectively drawn any real-world parallels. Although the music is certainly a large part of this film’s fingerprint, it’s really a rom-com at heart while the iconic songs serve as the backdrop. Boyle’s approach served as a smartly laid out disarming device to connect with the audience and get them cheering for the love story on the table. Trying to pitch him for Best Director at year’s end will be an uphill battle but this wasn’t an easy project to pull together and much different from his other work so, he deserves a good deal of credit for making this movie click in all the right ways. Jack Barth and Richard Curtis also deserve credit for finding the right kind of story and script to actually make this work. It would have been easy for this idea to fall flat if it weren’t for some good character writing and a love story to cheer for.
Casting a lead actor with name recognition costs significantly more but it also creates loftier expectations. Himesh Patel wasn’t a complete unknown coming into this film but had worked mostly on lesser-known TV series and, in this case, that lack of recognition turned out to be a blessing. Patel’s turn as Jack Malik was filled with unassuming charm and sarcastic delivery, combined with a surprisingly strong singing voice. He hashed out the just the right balance between the story and the music. Besides the skills he brought to the table, Patel played the sympathetic character pretty well considering the elitist attitude he begins with and what it is Jack is attempting to do in the film. The writers gave him a strong foundation to work with but he built the rest himself and it would look as though we now have a leading candidate for Breakthrough Performer of the Year.
The casting team of Courtney Bright, Nicole Daniels, and Gail Stevens found the right pieces for this puzzle and were rewarded with a number of strong performances. Lily James is at the front of them as the love interest/best friend/manager, Ellie Appleton, who hit all the notes about as well as you could have hoped. While she and Patel have good chemistry together as friends, their romance never quite clicked on that deeper level thanks to narrative choices. With everything going on, something had to give.
This was an especially good role for Kate McKinnon as the agent who lures Jack with the promises of fame and fortune. Coming from Saturday Night Live, many of her film roles required the style of the heavily caricatured portrayals she’d put forth on tv. This time out, Boyle toned it all down much more than usual and the result was a strong and funny performance depicting a colorful but realistic character. I haven’t watched her entire catalog but it was one of the better performances I’ve seen from her. Amid a bunch of strong roles, the guy who may have stolen the show was Joel Fry playing stoner/roadie Rocky. When he’s first introduced, the character seemed like a one-off joke but I get the feeling the filmmakers enjoyed him so much they made a little extra room. His awkward and brutally honest approach worked well, interacting with all the other characters uniquely.
This must have been both an incredibly fun and monumentally stressful undertaking. How do you go about capturing The Beatles entire body of work in just a couple of hours? How do you decide which songs will be included? Even a full-fledged documentary would struggle to encompass the sheer volume of their catalog and the global impact of their music. That said, Yesterday did a great job boiling down some of the key elements and making it a fun journey along the way. The opening weekend numbers weren’t staggering and, let’s face it, it was never going to beat our Toy Story 4 or the latest Annabelle flick but it did just about recoup its entire production budget. With that hurdle out of the way, everything from here on out is profit and word of mouth should do it some favors, despite some mediocre critical reviews.
Recommendation: If you’re a fan of the Beatles this is the summer movie for you. It’s better than it has been given credit for so far but certainly no masterpiece either. It’s charming, funny, and just the right amount of anecdotal counter-programming if you’re looking to escape summer blockbusters.