CAN YESTERDAY BECOME TOMORROW?

Rating: 7/10 (29 September 2019)

What happens when a sudden global blackout occurs, and when it is over, only one person in the world, a struggling musician, can remember the music and legacy of The Beatles? That is the premise of Yesterday (2019), a light-hearted, and often engaging film.
Having recently screened this movie, I can see why a LOT of people have enjoyed Yesterday. The diverse cast is wonderful, with Himesh Patel (Jack Mailik, a musician and the only person to remember the Beatles), Lily James (Ellie Appleton, Jack's love interest and dedicated supporter), Ed Sheehan (attractively playing himself), and Kate McKinnon, a SNL Alum, who plays a instantly unlikable and darkly hilarious music executive (Debra Hammer).
The music carried much of the story, and the overall science fiction/fantasy/dramatic concept was intriguing. The film never bothers to explain how the worldwide blackout and new timeline occurred. But maybe that's OK. After all, this is a film, and not real life, right? It's still a clever script, and well executed by Patel, who apparently did his own singing and guitar/piano playing on the soundtrack.
To be clear, I enjoyed this film, and as much as I appreciated the interesting premise, portions of it troubled me.
I'm somewhat of a Beatles purist, and from this standpoint, I've always believed that an unprecedented "perfect storm of events" had to occur in strict order for The Beatles to have ever existed as a band. There are so many twists and turns in Beatle history it is quite staggering. Also, the film presupposes that Beatle songs would have been "massive hits" no matter who performed them. Historically, Beatle fans evolved organically. We grew with them culturally as their music and styles changed. Even if you weren't a Beatle fan, you would still recognize that there was an enormous artistic leap from sweet, beguiling songs like "She Loves You" when compared to the pre-Metallic, more visceral "Helter Skelter." Can you imagine listening to "Why Don't We Do It In The Road" in a different time and place, and then thinking, "What a great song?" I don't think so. Yet, when composed and performed by the Beatles (actually only McCartney and Starr were involved in the recording) we gladly accept it as we enthusiastically accept the rest of the songs on the Beatles White Album.
Here are a few examples to describe the sheer complexity of the Beatles phenomenon, and why it is improbable that most Beatle songs would be popular no matter who performed them, even in a thoughtful and sensitive film like Yesterday.
Example #1: When Paul's mother, Mary (Yep, the same "Mother Mary" mentioned in the iconic Beatle/McCartney tune, Let It Be), accepted a new job as a nurse, the McCartney family had to move to another property closer to her hospital. When this happened, Paul was forced to take a different bus line to get to school. The bus line he took just happened to be driven by George Harrison's father, who used to let George ride for free. During one such ride, Paul went to sit "upstairs" to "have a smoke," and there he met a young George Harrison, already smoking, and, to McCartney's delight, was capably playing an old acoustic guitar. Thereafter, each school day, Paul and George would ride atop the same bus to school, and home again, smoking "ciggies" and singing the few tunes they both knew. Eventually Paul met John Lennon who invited him into his Skiffle band. Soon afterwards, McCartney convinced Harrison to audition for John's group. With 75% of the Beatles in place, it was just a matter of replacing Pete Best with the more likable Ringo Starr, whom John, Paul and George already knew from sharing the stage with another Liverpool group, Rory Storm and The Hurricanes.
Example #2: Brian Epstein had once attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, but soon realized he didn't enjoy being a student. Epstein's father put his son in charge of the record department in the family's NEMS music store on Great Charlotte Street in Liverpool. Epstein had learned about The Beatles from reading Mersey Beat, and also from a female fan of the band who had asked Brian if he had any Beatle records that she could purchase. Intrigued, Brian cautiously ventured into the Cavern Club to see what she was talking about. What he saw was a scruffy bunch of local Liverpool "lads who looked dirty, acted rude, and seemed very unpolished." But they had a raw energy that excited him. Brian soon became their manager, and through his theatrical experiences, as well as his flamboyant lifestyle, he "put the boys in nice suits," "made them pretty," and insisted that they "bow after every song." A different manager may have ignored the early Beatles, or tried to mold them differently. Epstein, with his love of theater and fashion, understood what needed to be done in order to transform his "wonderful boys" into a viable pop act worthy of a recording contract.
Example #3: Producer George Martin was given the assignment of recording the Beatles as a "punishment" by EMI. The company mistakenly held the belief that "guitar groups were a passing faze." Martin, who had previously produced comedy albums for people like Peter Sellers and The Goons, or helped to compose orchestral arrangements, had never been in charge of anything quite like The Beatles. Martin's sense of humor and open mindedness would turn out to be a perfect fit for Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr. Martin was surprisingly open to trying new ideas in the studio, and perfectly adept to "translate" into recordings any of the edgy ideas and contrivances that the young and creative group were persistently eager to explore. Any other producer would not have been able to properly produce and polish the works of Lennon and McCartney. This was the 1960's, a time when draconian recording engineers were autocratic, stuffy fellows, who wore white lab coats with black ties. Artists were not allowed to enter the engineering sound room. Martin and the Beatles would forever change how artists and producers would join forces to produce quality records.
For me to truly enjoy this film, I had to actually "forget" what I knew about The Beatles and their rise to becoming the world's greatest rock and roll band. I had to ignore the actual history and mechanics of how delicate and complicated the events were that eventually made the Beatles so profound and unique. It wasn't just the music that made the Beatles great. When I suspended my own sense of reality, it allowed me to enjoy the film for what it was: A great romp into a fantasy world where the Beatles were only remembered by one human being, and that person's decision to exploit that memory in order to help his own failing career made for a very interesting cinematic journey.