Yesterday Film Review - Hey Dude Danny Boyle Directs A Love Story To The Beatles Without Coke & Cigarettes

Rating: 10/10 (12 July 2019)

Yesterday written by Richard Curtis offers an interesting premise, what if no one had heard of The Beatles and their songs? Danny Boyle directs the unsuccessful singer Jack Malik, played by Himesh Patel, as he strums his guitar around Suffolk. His manager Ellie is the gorgeous, but dowdy, Lily James, a schoolteacher by day but roadie/driver when he plays a gig. And when Jack lands a spot at Latitude it's the big time. In the Suffolk tent with a handful of kids and his friends as audience. And that's it, he's finished with music. Playing his Summer song to seagulls and empty cafes. But miracles can happen says Ellie, like Benedict Cumberbatch becoming a sex symbol, she suggests. Cutting! But Jack is unconvinced as he rides off on his bike, and just as his life couldn't get any worse, the world suffers a 12 second blackout and he's hit by a bus in the darkness. Knocking him out cold, and his front tooth.
And the weirdest thing is when he recovers and Ellie and Jack's friends give him a new guitar, seeing as the last one is now firewood, he christens it by playing Yesterday. We've all strummed a guitar and played a Beatles riff or two, but Jack's friends have never heard Yesterday before. And they haven't heard of the Beatles, and neither has Yahoo. Pope John Paul II! It seems Jack is the only person on Earth who knows John, Paul, George and Ringo. And with no one having heard of the Beatles, songs that John Hannah said in Sliding Doors, we are all born knowing, passed along to the fetus, Jack suddenly has a whole new body of work. If he can only remember the words.
And when Jack plays the songs for the first time it isn't only his new audience that sits up and listens, well to be honest they don't, it's a slow burn, like playing bars in Hamburg. But for us it's like we're hearing them for the first time. And their power is as strong as it was when they were first played, before we were born. Well except the first play of Let It Be could have gone better, a screen gem in front of his family. Mum and Dad are hilariously played by Meera Syal and Sanjeev Bhaskar. They aren't expecting much from Jack's music.
And as well as a love story to the Beatles there is a love story that should have developed between Jack and Ellie. But as Jack never noticed it, over time they became just friends. But Ellie always holds a candle for him, why else would she manage his unsuccessful music career, he's her Wonderwall. Even without Oasis. And now as he plays the Beatles greatest hits, fame beckons when the Ed Sheeran offers Jack a gig as his supporting act. Ed is a good sport accepting his inadequacies over Jack's talent. Yeah Hey Dude didn't work. But Back In The USSR goes down a storm, in Russia. The Beatles never actually played in Russia, but imagine how Back In The USSR would actually have gone down.
Kate McKinnon is Ed Sheeran's manager Debra, and she offers to also manage Jack, Ellie cannot just leave her school teacher job to go with him and Jack is the biggest thing in music. To be honest Debra's pretty upfront about the deal in her downward dog, she'll make him a star and take all the money. Fair enough I suppose as he ripped off the Beatles, but nobody knows. And as luck would have it fortune favoured Jack who could sing and play guitar. Otherwise he would just be a lonely person remembering all these hits that he couldn't sing. Although without the Beatles where did the yellow submarine come from I wondered? But this is everything Jack always wanted. Fame and fortune. And he never even knew what he was missing with Ellie, but it's never too late. Love is all Jack needs.
I was at some point waiting for Paul and Ringo to appear but Yesterday is a fantasy so why not a fantasy end. And in that strange universe I wonder was it a fair deal? Death and immortality or life and anonymity. It was a terrific idea to spin the Beatles jukebox, and imagine no Coke or cigarettes, saving the NHS a fortune. But even in that strange universe Harry Potter isn't going to write itself!
Danny Boyle directs a great cast with summer loving, happiness and comedy, and just keeps the hits coming. Terrific fun.