This has been a rough year for me and the movies. First of all let’s knock off this nonsense that Marvel Films killed the movies they didn’t. “Captain America: Winter Soldier” is as well made and good as any Scorsese flick, Martin Scorsese is entitled to his opinion. Now imagine a world without “Goodfellas” or “Raging Bull” if you can then the premise of “Yesterday” may intrigue you. Screenwriters Jack Barth and Richard Curtis create a world in which The Beatles, the birth of the British Invasion never happened. Only one person, struggling singer Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) knows about the Fab 4. So what do you do if you have a treasure trove of iconic music swirling in your head? “Yesterday” answers that question and more helping things a thousand percent is director’s Danny Boyle’s confidence in his story telling.
If you’ve seen the trailer and figured the movie out, then spoiler alert you don’t. That makes this pop confection even more delightful. Jack has a diverse well English diverse set of friends, there’s his manager/school teacher Ellie (Lily James) they’ve known one another since forever and a day. Nick (Harry Mitchell) who enthusiastically asks for Jack’s “Summer Song” at all of his performances. Jack’s parents are eccentric, just like in all English movies. So how does Jack know about The Beatles? Thru the magic of screenwriting and getting his by a bus during a literal worldwide power outage.
Not having the music of John, Paul, George and Ringo plus everyone else who helped create the greatest and most influential bands ever would suck and we don’t live in a world like that. Ed Sheeran that Ed Sheeran who has made a nice life for himself with his music plays himself and wants Jack to open up for him on his world tour. Ed is dumbstruck as to how Jack creates “his” songs and question if he should be a musician still.
I think “Yesterday” was a modest hit at the box office, I’m not sure, I didn’t see it in the theatre because I just didn’t have time, this is definitely a movie for me where I would buy the DVD or Blu-Ray new, I hope that there is an extensive making of doc with the movie. Point being it’s not the Marvel Studio that’s killing movies, it’s the studios themselves willingly and blindly greenlighting 150 million dollar plus budgets to get that billion dollar return, instead of having a few modestly budgeted films that can have nice returns. “Yesterday” is well worth your time and by the end you feel better about everything.
Take52 