They’re trying not to sing out of key
Yesterday
1/2 (out of 4) Starring Himesh Patel, Lily James, Kate McKinnon, Joel Fry and Ed Sheeran. Written by Richard Curtis. Directed by Danny Boyle. Opens Friday at theatres everywhere. 116 minutes. PG A mysterious global power outage that wipes the Beatles from history is one of the easier plot contrivances to swallow in the genial British comedy Yesterday. After a golden string of pics ( A Star Is Born, Bohemian
Rhapsody, Rocketman) that insightfully pulled the curtain back on the music industry,
Yesterday is a wilfully naive take on pop stardom. The film suggests that, like a million monkeys on a million pianos, topping the charts is as easy as plunking out the right series of notes to magically crack open the locks to our hearts.
The story follows Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), a British troubadour stocking shelves by day, gigging his pop-rock tunes to disinterested bar patrons by night, cheerfully accompanied by his equally amateurish manager Ellie (Lily James). After playing to another empty tent at a festival, he swears he’s giving up music forever. But then a bump on the head during an unexplained blackout leaves him the sole bearer of the Beatles’ memory, which he quickly exploits for fame and profit.
Light comedy is mined from this high concept (googling Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band brings up a military dating site while the search result for “John Paul George Ringo” is Pope John Paul II). After he appears on a local cable show, Jack catches the attention of Ed Sheeran and is invited to fill in as his opening act.
Though his role was originally written for Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Sheeran is perfect for the part of the musical mentor: His real-life breakout as a nogimmicks singer/songwriter makes the case that, yes, someone can sell out arenas with nothing but a guitar and a setlist of amazing songs. Sheeran makes the most of his screen time, delivering some solid shots at his outsized celebrity persona.
As Jack’s star rises, he struggles with feeling like a fraud. Yet it never seems like much is at stake, even as his rock-star dreams come true and a ruthless manager spirits him away to Los Angeles and away from Ellie. As Jack’s archly demeaning manager, Saturday Night Live’s Kate McKinnon delivers a sharply satirical take on music-industry greed.
If only the rest of the film had as much insight as McKinnon’s performance. The Beatles music may be timeless, but the idea that a rock-driven song such as “Back In The U.S.S.R.” would electrify fans at an Ed Sheeran concert or that the gleefully dorky “I Want to Hold Your Hand” is going to unseat country-hip-hop hybrid “Old Town Road” from the top of the Billboard Hot 100 feels like a quaintly nostalgic view — one that sunnily dismisses 50 years of changing musical taste.
It might have been easier to suspend belief had the musical numbers actually radiated the kind of must-see electricity that drives an actual breakout, such as that Childish Gambino had with his “This Is America” video last year or that Lizzo just delivered at the BET Awards. Yet after acquiring the rights to that pricey Beatles catalogue, Patel’s performance does nothing to suggest Jack deserves to be a global superstar, best songs of all time or not. There is a job for gifted writers with tremulous voices; they’re called songwriters.
Given these joyless musical numbers, director Danny Boyle has stubbornly steered Yesterday away from being the highconcept Beatles jukebox musical it is billed as.
When the original Ed Sheeran song “One Life” plays late in the film, it is conspicuous for its polished production — hearing a song connected to the actual sound of music today underlines how much of a fantasy Jack’s Beatles tracks are.
While it’s fun to think anyone could be a rock star, Yesterday reminds us of the collateral damage of that fantasy: the audience who has to watch them.