A Critique on "Yesterday"

Rating: 7/10 (22 July 2019)

I know I'm incredibly late to the game on reviewing this movie, but Yesterday was a movie I was looking forward to seeing based off the concept alone. Let me start by saying that I'm not the biggest fan of musical biopics, because it's rather difficult to write intriguing and surprising elements. I don't want to open a can of worms on a movie that's already been polarized by millions, but I'm actually one of the few people who enjoyed Bohemian Rhapsody. Yes, I'm fully aware of some of the awful things that it does, such as that one scene where there are like sixty cuts or something, simply ignoring a handful of movies (Flash Gordon mainly) or other artists they collabed with, and also having the time of events (such as album releases or when Freddie gets AIDS) to be very confusing and also disappointing. Although there was much room for improvement and shouldn't have been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, I also thought that as a one time or even two time watch it was more than decent, and I still find Rami Malek's performance to be truly incredible. This is the main reason I was looking forward to seeing Yesterday, because I thought that they found a really creative way to solve the usual tropes of musical biopics, and also have its own unique and original story behind it. I also really like the director behind it, as he made one of my favorite movies of all time, that being Steve Jobs. So, after seeing it and letting it resonate in my mind for about a week and a half or so, I could say that it definitely isn't perfect but isn't awful either. I do think that this is better than Bohemian Rhapsody, but I also didn't enjoy it as much as Rocketman. I thought that this movie was good, but nothing higher or lower than that. I think I have more to say about my personal flaws than my pros, but I do want to point out some of the things I loved about this movie. I love how we got to see the main character interact with John Lennon in this alternate timeline and see one of his biggest idols right in front of him. I thought it was handled very well especially considering that if it wasn't handled the way it was, it could've easily came across as insulting and disrespectful to Lennon's legacy and life. I also really enjoyed the idea of people and items and food just randomly disappearing, not just the Beatles. That made it feel more real to me although the plot isn't really realistic itself, which is just impressive I think. But that leads me into my biggest problem with the movie, and although it could be marked as a major nitpick, I still think it's an important character detail that just went unnoticed. Why does the main character want people to remember the Beatles? He's pretty much the only person in this world that knows about everything that just vanished off the face of the earth, so why does he want specially want the Beatles to be remembered? There's never a moment where he explains why he's doing this, all we get is that they have amazing music. I'm not trying to disregard the impact the Beatles have had, they're one of my favorite bands of all time. It's just never made clear why he choose the certain thing he did, while he could've done the same thing with anything else such as Harry Potter or Coca Cola or Oasis or any other musical artist that vanished. That part seemed to be unfocused to me, and I also think it would've done a lot to establish the main character's story even more. Another problem I have is that the editing in the beginning of the movie appears to be VERY sloppy edited. It threw me off at first and I thought to myself "Oh, maybe this is just the style the director wanted." But it really isn't... because they drop that style within the next ten or fifteen minutes. It felt more rushed to me than anything which I found to be disappointing. My last real complaint is that I found the whole thing with Ed Sheeran to be kinda forgettable? I think that he has a really promising start when he's first introduced, because when he hears our main character perform a song he realizes to himself that he isn't going to be as good as he can be anymore, which led our main character (Sorry I forgot his name) to feel guilty about stripping away the glory of other musicians that have stayed behind. I thought that was a very interesting start to his arc and could've been DEEPLY explored, but the movie literally forgets that it started this arc and Ed comes back into the movie like an hour later and he's just fine again? It felt very jarring to me and didn't make much sense. Overall, I really enjoyed everything else in Yesterday. I thought that it was a really sweet movie about finding love and purpose to yourself, and about finding your place in the world. I thought everyone in the movie did a good job, except for Kate McKinnon who was just okay for me. I would totally recommend this to someone if they're looking for something interesting to watch, and I wouldn't mind owning the movie on blu ray. I think that more people should go out to support it, and I wouldn't mind seeing it again. 7/10. It's good. Go see it if you haven't.