Yesterday (2019)

"All songs & music by Jack Malik only."  

Director

Danny Boyle

Cast

Himesh Patel - Jack Malik

Lily James - Ellie Appleton

Ed Sheeran - himself

Joel Fry - Rocky

Kate McKinnon - Debra Hammer

Justin Edwards - Leo

Ellise Chappell - Lucy

(Spoilers ahead🎸) 

When I first read Stephen King's 2011 novel "11/22/63" about a time traveler who stops the Kennedy assassination, and then finds out what would have happened (according to King) if Kennedy hadn't been killed, I came up with a little story in my head about a guy who manages to claim one of the biggest Hollywood franchises as his own. I won't go into the details here. I'll save them for whenever that story is published...or written. 

I think it takes a great amount of imagination on top of a little research to come with ideas of what could have happened if an historical event did or didn't happen. That "what if" scenario is often just as intriguing as a ghost story. What could have been! 

As a Beatles fan, I was sold by the premise of the 2019 movie "Yesterday" when I first saw the trailer. 

What if the Beatles existed, and then didn't? And what if only one person, who happens to be a musician, remembers them and their songs? What would that musician do with Beatles music that's suddenly free for the taking. The movie takes these questions one interesting step further. 

The story centers on Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), a singer and songwriter who plays to small crowds. 

He travels with his manager and childhood friend, Ellie Appleton (Lily James) from gig to gig. 

While Jack thinks his attempts at a musical career are going nowhere, Ellie encourages him to keep going and not give up. She recognizes his talent.

While riding home on his bike one evening, Jack is hit by a car knocking him out. At that same time, a power outage occurs around the world for 12-seconds. 

Jack wakes up in the hospital, bruised but still alive and in one piece save for a few missing teeth. 

When he recovers, Ellie and his other friends have a small party to celebrate his recovery. During the party, they give him a new guitar as a gift since his old one was damaged during the collision. 

They encourage to sing something with his new gift. So, he does. 

Jack starts singing "Yesterday" by the Beatles. Oddly, neither Ellie nor his friends know the song and think he wrote it. They're taken back by how beautiful the song is. Jack thinks they're having him on, pretending they don't know the Beatles. 

After going to Google, Jack can't find anything online about the Beatles. He checks his record collection, and can't find any of his Beatles records. 

Lily James and Himesh Patel in "Yesterday."

Shocked and confused, Jack comes to the obvious conclusion that the legendary band never existed and he's the only person who remembers them. 

He works hard trying to recall all the Beatles song lyrics he can and starts performing them for others. As no one recalls the group nor their songs, Jack claims he wrote the songs. 

After a gig where he sings nothing but Beatles songs, a local music producer named Gavin (Alexander Arnold) wants him to record an album. So, he and Ellie do that with music only Jack knows were written by the Beatles. 

He then has a televised performance which catches the attention of famed singer/ songwriter Ed Sheeren (played by himself). 

Ed invites Jack to open for him in Moscow, again passing off Beatle songs as his own. 

After the show, Ed challenges Jack to a friendly competition. They each have to write a song in ten-minutes. 

After ten-minutes, Jack sings "The Long and Winding Road" which stuns everyone present.
Ed admits defeat to Jack.

"You're definitely Mozart, mate. And I'm definitely Salieri," Ed says. 

Soon, Jack becomes world famous as the greatest singer/ songwriter alive. Ed's manager Debra Hammer (Kate McKinnon) takes the reins of his career.
Meanwhile, Ellie finally admits she has been in love with Jack since childhood. This leaves Jack torn. His fame is getting in his way. 

While recording another album, Jack can't recall the lyrics to "Eleanor Rigby." So, he travels to Liverpool, England, the birthplace of the Beatles, to visit the places that they sang about in hopes the trip will jumpstart his memory - Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane, etc. 

Ellie meets up with him in Liverpool, and they share a long-awaited kiss. Jack is clearly in love with Ellie. But Ellie doesn't just want to be a one-night stand and has reservations about joining him in his celebrity life. This saddens Jack, of course, as treating her like a one-night stand wasn't his intention.

After Jack performs a rooftop concert, similar to the Beatles 1969 concert on top of the roof of Apple Corp headquarters, to promote a new album, two strangers pay him a visit backstage. 

Fellow Beatles fans, Liz (from Liverpool) and Ed (from Russia), tell Jack they also remember the Beatles and know he didn't write his songs. 

But instead of exposing him, they thank him for bringing their music to the world and hand him a slip of paper with an address on it that will change his career path for the better. 

While the storyline is certainly full of holes thanks primarily to the premise of altered time, which is really something that can't be helped, "Yesterday" is a fun movie. 
The story doesn't collapse in on itself under with the weight of all the questions that arise with the "what if" scenario and the direction things would go. Instead, the story stays focused. Afterall, why let what-ifs get in the way of suspending reality. 

Instead, the story uses some of that as a joke. While the Rolling Stones still exist in this altered universe, (weird as they were formed in the shadow of the rising success of the Beatles) Coca~Cola, cigarettes, the band Oasis, and Harry Potter have disappeared along with the Beatles. 

The clever part of the story is that while Jack possesses a gold mine of decades-long song writing work solely in his memory, his versions of their songs aren't quit the same because, simply, they're not his. He doesn't completely know the back story behind each tune. This is subtly observed as people around him ask how he came up with these various songs, and he can't really answer. Or, if he does, he doesn't go into detail. He just gives an answer to move past the question. 

For instance, Ed Sheeren comments on the title of the song "Back in the U.S.S.R." which Jack sings during the show in Moscow. It's an odd title for a new song pertaining to Russia. But it made more sense back in 1968 when it was written. Jack can't come up with a reason for using the former U.S.S.R. in his song. 

In the midst of climbing to success while dealing with his relationship with Ellie, and the guilt of passing off songs that aren't his, he forgets the purposes of each song and the spirit of the Beatles. He simply wants to mimic their career, album by album, song by song. 

When he's visited by Liz and Leo, it then hits him that he has no part in all the Beatles songs outside of simply liking their music, remembering their impact on the world, and recalling the lyrics. Otherwise, the mind, heart, and soul of each song doesn't belong to Jack. The true reason for their existence isn't his to claim. That point is made clear without having to state it. Jack, Leo, and Liz find themselves the only stewards of music that suddenly no one has heard before. Jack is the only one of them that can sing. Outside of that, none of it means much to the record company and the other powers that be standing over his career.

The company that wants to launch his album doesn't care much for the album names Jack recommends which are titles of Beatle albums. Ed Sheeren later suggests the song title "Hey Jude" is too old fashioned, so recommends the title "Hey Dude." 

The film ends with Jack dropping in on John Lennon whose still alive and living a quiet life as he hadn't risen to fame since the Beatles never were. He tells Jack to pursue his true love, and above all, live an honest life. 

I'm not too familiar with director Danny Boyle's other films, which includes "Trainspotting," "28 Days Later" and "Slumdog Millionaire." But he manages to make something entertaining and unique with this movie.

I have mixed feelings about Kate McKinnon's performance. While McKinnon is a comedian, and a good one for the most part, her performance seems awkward to me. She's great at playing a money-driven materialistic manager calling the shots. It's too similar to pretty much every other role I've seen her play. At the same time, her character is supposed to be unlikeable, and she portrays that well. 

The montage scene is a bit different from the formulaic ones seen over and over again. This time, Jack watches his success climb as it's played on a giant screen. 

While time travel or time altered stories have been turned to movies before, "Yesterday" is a fun fantasy film that explores a unique "what-if" scenario. It stands out among other such movies. 

It ends on a very bold move that raised eyebrows among audiences. I think it definitely fits such the story and was the only logical place to go.