Overthinking Danny Boyle’s “Yesterday”

One of the values of this lengthy quarantine is that it allows you to take in entertainment that you otherwise ignored. It’s late at night, you’re sitting on your couch and you see HBO sitting right there. You stare into the many channels, realizing that you’ve already caught this week’s The Plot Against America and that all of their movies are about an hour in. You want to watch a movie, but nothing sounds exciting. In a last-ditch effort, you decide to look at HBO On Demand where suddenly you see that there’s more to this channel than the dozens of titles that they replay nonstop. 

Oh, there’s so much more to parse through. In a delightful collage, you come across several titles that spark your imagination. Among them is director Danny Boyle’s Yesterday (2019). Eyebrows raise as you think about what a film that was largely seen as secondary Boyle could possibly hold. After all, he was coming off of a pretty interesting decade of film starting with 127 Hours (2010) and features the unnoticed masterpiece Steve Jobs (2015). I know this film can’t be great, but one could hope that it’s a celebration of The Beatles as this phenomenal force of nature. I press play, realizing that I was about to watch a movie that combined the hive minds of Trainspotting (1996) and Love Actually (2003) into a film about this harsh reality where the most accomplished musicians of the 20th century never got together.

One is a genius, the other's insane

They exist, but it sounds like they never became musicians. At one point there’s even a cameo from a man playing John Lennon (Robert Carlyle) that shows him alive and well at the ripe old age of 78. It’s presumed that he never met Paul McCartney and changed the world. He seems happy and complacent, but this is a mere cameo compared to what else is going on. There is no attention paid to what the other Beatles are doing. We have to know what happened to Richard Starkey (because let’s face it, he’s not changing his name to Ringo Starr if The Beatles never existed). Is he some wise old janitor dispensing advice to the random kids who populate Ellie’s (Lily James) school? 

Nope, though we sure know that Oasis’ “Wonderwall” doesn’t exist. Why? Because the joke is that Oasis wanted to be The Beatles and there was no other way that Noel and Liam Gallagher were going to be musicians otherwise. 

So much of the fabric feels wrong with Yesterday. I understand that it’s meant to be more of a romantic comedy, highlighting a failing musician named Jack (Himesh Patel) learning to appreciate the simple things in life. The issue is that this is clearly overwhelmed by the gimmick. The Beatles don’t exist and here’s Jack exploiting his gifts in order to better the world. He’s considered this brilliant songwriter because he can recall every song imaginable. However, if the story tracks any logic, he gave up after one album meaning that he likely only recorded 20 songs, leaving chestnuts like “Rocky Raccoon” and “Happiness is a Warm Gun” to be forgotten to time. 

Now some of you are probably fine with this, especially considering that it wants to be more about artistic integrity. As much as the concept is icky to begin with, there is room to be insightful about the idea of how we consume music. It’s not like screenwriter Richard Curtis hasn’t explored this before. There’s a whole subplot in Love Actually dedicated to criticizing popular music. He could have done anything to comment on how shifting one thing about The Beatles changes the very fabric of society, and instead, he chooses to make jokes about how Coca Cola and the “Harry Potter” novels never existed. I should find it funny, but thinking that J.K. Rowling is still living paycheck to paycheck since she never got that break is a tad too depressing.

The film is fun if all you want to do is hear Beatles songs given the Pat Boone treatment, singing along in a theater with a goofy smile on your face. The film is largely harmless, but it does little to add integrity to The Beatles' brand. You might as well ask what a world without Elvis Presley was like. All it is doing is repackaging nostalgia by having a guy luck into a great gig. He is now all four Beatles in one, capable of adding this milquetoast rendition while being called a genius by the likes of Ed Sheeran. If there’s any fantasy within the film, it’s ever believing that Ed Sheeran was a measure of God-tier talent.

Imagine if they referenced THIS

In my head, I’m sitting there realizing how many of the “small” things the film didn’t even have fun with. Sure, it’s exciting to exploit a loophole for massive profit. However, I think there’s one thing that the film should’ve explored in light of The Beatles never existed. 

The world would be very different, and it’s not just Sheeran being called a genius. The group influenced thousands of bands and set templates that the music referenced in this never considered (I don’t believe that Radiohead “In Rainbows” poster would exist either). Certain artists would’ve been MORE popular in the 60s and thus the sound would’ve changed. Imagine if The Rolling Stones were the biggest thing. Everyone would be trying to emulate “Exile on Main Street” and not “Abbey Road.” Think of the small things, have fun with your fantasy.

Most of all, realize the biggest factor of them all. It’s barely hinted at in a running joke where Sheeran suggests that “Hey Jude” be changed to “Hey Dude.” It’s clever, but it doesn’t go far enough. What if Jack’s memory is bad and he alters the lyrics in terrible ways? Even more, what if nobody picks up the music? The Beatles are adored now because of their cultural impact. Nothing like them existed before. We know the world they created. But what if they existed in a world created by others? Would half of their songs resonate? Everyone has already been doing these tricks and evolving. Considering how little has changed otherwise, the idea that we’re living in a time when Ariana Grande tops the charts with “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored,” is there anything to be had with the simple textures of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”?

It’s a lazy shorthand to just think that Jack singing Beatles songs shoots him to fame. If the film wanted to have a convincing build, he would’ve been found on YouTube like Justin Bieber. He would’ve been randomly playing on a street corner. He is a struggling musician after all, and there’s not enough focus on the struggle. He just exists as Sheeran’s buddy flying to Russia to sing the anachronistic “Back in the U.S.S.R” People notice that the name is wrong, but never find it problematic.

Had the film wanted to have fun with even the history of pop culture with The Beatles, it could’ve gone so much further. What if “Come Together” lead to a wacky lawsuit with Chuck Berry, or how The Beach Boys exist but they never recorded “Pet Sounds” because “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” never existed? Better yet, what would Jack have done for that album cover since most of the key elements didn’t even exist? While it’s fun to watch music executives fail to understand the artistic legacy of The Beatles’ album covers, it’s not given enough levity. It’s just another moment to Jack getting super famous for other people’s work. We sit there in the audience realizing how much The Beatles were geniuses and without them, we’re all imbeciles.

I do think something is also lost in having somebody else sing these songs. There is no heart in Jack’s performances. He also doesn’t have a lot of motivation beyond holding together his memory of music long enough to get them onto the recording. It’s a promising enough premise, but it doesn’t hold any stakes. He’s a hero because he records good songs, that’s it. But they’re so impersonal. Part of the charm of The Beatles was the outtakes and the stories that make the songs something greater. It’s the experimental techniques that Jack would never do (i.e. drugs). He has no internal desire for these songs and it all makes the endeavor so much less fruitful. So what if recreating the songs don’t go the way he wants? The Beatles had a spontaneity that just recalling something can’t give you.

At the heart of this, I wonder what the film would’ve been like if it didn’t have so much love for The Beatles and left them in a cradle where passerbys coo at the adorable sounds. I want to know what Jack’s life would be like if he had initial satisfaction with The Beatles, but at some point he snaps. He is tired of being remembered for other people’s work. Even if he’s some messenger from God, he longs to have his own work matter. What if there was a dueling approach to this that Jack released his own music alongside The Beatles and watching his own original ideas fail became this painful reminder that we’re not all The Beatles. We’re all struggling to write the next great record, but some just get lucky.

Play with the existentialism of the setting. I know that this is heady material for Yesterday, geared at people who want to only be reminded that The Beatles were great, but that’s doing them such a disservice. The reason that they managed to have the legacy they did wasn’t just because of one thing. It’s the mythology as much as the product. You need to have more of a love for their story in order to make the film feel rich. Have these small references and not just “Ooh… a yellow submarine, get it? It’s like that song… ‘Yellow Submarine.’” Maybe include the Big Blue Meanies™ or the iconic animation as a throwaway gag. I don’t know, have someone say “You’re going nowhere, man” and have Jack be like “Hmm… ‘Nowhere Man.’ I like that name.”

Jack is a boring wanker. Paul McCartney wasn’t. Thinking that The Beatles were great isn’t a revolutionary idea. Think of them as the musicians that they were, willing to tear apart instruments in order to make a new sound. What about Jack getting backlash for “Wild Honey Pie”? Thinking about WHY they were great is far more interesting than outright saying it. Their experimentation provided new insight into rock music and music in general. I do believe that without albums like “Rubber Soul” or “The White Album,” there’s no reason to believe that the artists that followed would go down those creative routes. There’s no addressing of this in Yesterday. It’s just some guy doing the most vanilla take of these songs. 

I’d rather we follow somebody like Joe Cocker covering these songs just because there’s something interesting about redoing these songs in a totally different style. Jack clearly is in it only for the money and any personal growth is at odds with the idea that he’s a willing cog in a bigger machine. His choice to give away the music for free at the end feels a bit disingenuous, especially since The Beatles catalog is often the biggest holdout for each new digital platform.

Considering that Steve Jobs found Danny Boyle altering the Apple creator’s life in order to fit a dramatic structure, one has to wonder why he didn’t do the same here. It’s at most beginner pop art, not really reminding us of anything specific about The Beatles. It’s unfortunate that The Beatles have a name drop in this film because they deserve so much better. If you want to live in a world where The Beatles don’t exist but the members still do, why not integrate them more into the story? Who cares that Jack ends the story enjoying the simple things in life? The Beatles still don’t exist, and it feels like the initial tension by which everyone bought a ticket was never resolved. It doesn’t say anything about the impact that the band has, just that we’re gullible to buy their songs over and over again. 

And the worst part of all? They don’t end the film with “The End” as they rightfully should’ve.