Yesterday: A Film Review

A Catastrophic look at The Butterfly Effect

Cast

Himesh Patel … Jack Malik

Lily James … Ellie Appleton

Ed Sheeran … Ed Sheeran

Kate McKinnon … Debra Hammer

“What if’s” are basically hypotheses and best guess scenarios to complicated dilemmas. Let’s take, for example, that what if nobody ever heard of the musical act, The Beatles? Would the world be better off not experiencing the group? Would music have changed fundamentally without their participation? Would Richard Nixon not been caught up in the Watergate scandal and have a presidency scandal-free? While none of these things are addressed in the film, Yesterday, it does open up a lot of questions that the film didn’t address. When the trailer for this movie was first released, I found myself wanting to see it, mainly for the nostalgia for The Beatles and for the music in general.

Danny Boyles’s Yesterday could have starred anyone but he went with actors perhaps only known in the United Kingdom who were more than capable of wanting us to go along in this journey and for us to invest something with these characters. And off we go for this ride down this journey of make-believe and should I dare say it, this magical mystery tour.

Jack Malik (Hamish Patel) is your typical struggling musician. He's a good enough musician where he does have the talent, just not the opportunity. Like most musicians who are more than capable, he can’t seem to catch a break. His manager, Ellie Appleton (Lily James), is a long time friend who shepherds him around from gig to gig is what is seen as the most futile of chances. It has gotten to the point where even Malick recognizes the writings on the wall after another disappointing gig playing to a handful of 9 and 10-year-old. He confides in Ellie about his decision to perhaps end his fledgling music career and go back to teaching. She attempts to persuade him to not stop but as he gets out of her car and on to his bicycle, he is not readily convinced.

It is on his way home that he is struck by a bus and wakes up in the hospital where things have changed as we get a clue when Malik says to Ellie the first Beatles line to Ellie, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?” She questions why 64? And we are off. Out of the hospital and with his friends, Malik is given a replacement guitar for the one destroyed in the bus accident. Here, he plays Yesterday to break the guitar in and nobody at the table recognizes it as being this classic Beatles song. I have to give a lot of credit to Hamish Patel for actually singing the songs and playing the instruments in this film. He’s a very capable musician and singer and he does it in a way that doesn’t aggravate your eardrums. There’s an emotional connection with his voice when he sings Yesterday.

As the film continues, Malik finds that he has awakened in a world that has no history of the Beatles. As horrifying as that may be, he decides to fill in their legacy by taking on the mantle of bearing the Beatles cross and by appropriating their music. I enjoyed this movie but what I found was that it didn’t address the larger picture of this world without the Beatles. If we were to explore this world and the so-called butterfly effect. The Beatles made the U.S. debut in February of 1964. This was a significant impact on not just the music world, the musical first wave of the British invasion, the historical impact to Liverpool, England and the psyche of millions of teens and the influences on a generational pop culture that inspired thousands.

Let’s take another step, if the Beatles music was never around, we would never have an opportunity to experience solo works of John Lennon, imagine a world with no Imagine. Without Paul McCarthy, there would be no Wings or no Band On The Run. There would be no Beatles catalog for Michael Jackson to purchase. The world would be void of a Stella McCarthy design fashion line. There would be no concert in Bangladesh without George Harrison and no Here Comes The Sun and My Sweet Lord. Ringo Starr would not be married to Barbara Bach and we wouldn’t be hearing It Don’t Come Easy. Though the premise may have been simple, waking up to a world where the Beatles didn’t exist, the ramifications would be like if the Beatles were this large pebble and you tossed it into a lake and the ripples expanded out in the water, this is what the Beatles represents in this world.

The one thing the movie did stick its neck out on was the notion that John Lennon was still alive. John Lennon, played by Robert Carlyle, was effective as we see an aging Lennon living out a quiet life as a painter. It was bittersweet and perhaps reminded us of the cost of fame. Maybe they should have given us at least one other Beatles to see how their lives might have existed in this Beatles-less world? So, if you’re tired of the superheroes films, this is a nice palate cleanser to clear out your Spider senses.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars