Yesterday (2019)

Directed by: Danny Boyle Written by: Richard Curtis

   As a participant in the film-fan community, I can’t help but feel a pressure to categorize films as  either “mainstream” or “high art.” There are exceptions to this binary, but, generally speaking, the exceptions themselves are approved by community consensus. For example, there is no dispute that film fans are allowed to like Black Panther despite its mainstream status.

Yesterday is not a “high art” film, nor did it feel like one of the sanctioned exceptions to the binary. Nonetheless, the film which I went to, more out of a sense of obligation than anticipation, showed that, at least sometimes, this pretentious binary is one we can afford to ignore. Yesterday has an intriguing, but accessible premise that is spelled out early in its run time. The overall arc of its script is also one that can be described as “feel-good.” But simplicity does not necessitate genericness. “Feel-good” does not imply “cliched.” “Accessible” does not mean “shallow.”

Yesterday is the story of Jack Malek (Himesh Patel) a talented but unsuccessful singer-songwriter in his late twenties. His story takes off with a scene of him complaining to his manager (Lily James) about how he will never make it. She reassures him with messaging about dreams coming true. Thus, early on, Yesterday establishes itself as a familiar, “inspirational” story. While some might find this moment cliched, as a musician I don’t read this scene as delivering Disney-fied, “work-hard, believe-hard-dreams-come-true” moralism. Rather, this scene simply acknowledges that wanting the unattainable is almost an inherent part of participating in arts such as music. Music is often about sharing oneself with audiences, a practice which inevitably creates a drive for fame (for more people to engage with). While, on the surface, Yesterday is about Jack’s dreams coming true, the film is really not about the result, but the underlying desire.

This initial scene is followed by a science-fiction sequence, in which a melodic element from The Beatles “A Day in the Life” is cleverly deployed, and the film’s defining plot point is put into play. Everyone, except Jack, is somehow left without knowledge/memory of The Beatles. This allows Jack to take the music scene by storm, by claiming The Beatles’ catalogue as his own (music nerd question: did he also go for “Imagine,” “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “My Sweet Lord,” etc?).  From here, Jack’s classic feel-good arc takes off, with Jack becoming famous and suffering some heartache along the way.

Nonetheless, Jack’s journey to the top is not so much an arc, but a staggered staircase, an approach that shows the thought that went into the film’s writing. The initial reaction to Jack’s songs is mild acclaim. In the “Let it Be,” scene viewers are temporarily left to wonder whether Jack will in fact attain celebrity status.

Yesterday is a film that can be said to have primary and secondary themes. The primary themes are the classic ones: gratitude, believing in yourself, listening to your heart, etc. The secondary themes, however, are smarter, and in turn make it easier to enjoy the films more cliched moments of sentimentality. When Jack’s initial struggle for fame is depicted in the film’s first act, and when his clashes with his marketing team come up later on, viewers are reminded just how socially-constructed musical celebrity is. The Beatles is not an exceptional group because it consisted of exceptional musical visionaries. Rather, it is exceptional because it was a group of great musicians who exceptionally came together, and found the space to express themselves at the right historical moment.

Yesterday hints at this idea, but doesn’t force it. Its writers, probably rightly, realized that hinting at the non-exceptionality of The Beatles can be inspiring, but to belt it would be to ruin a near-universal source of joy and connection. Yesterday’s writers perhaps could have crossed the bridge from “mainstream” to “high art” by making their secondary story the primary one. The film could have had a slow-baking twist where Jack never becomes famous: where the mild roadblocks he encounters with “Yesterday” and “Let it Be” grow bigger and more tragically ironic. And while Yesterday didn’t go there, I think its clear that its creative team knew that such a story was a possibility. In turn, the depth of their thought process  is reflected in how they executed the safer choice they ultimately made

One difference between “high-art” and “mainstream films” is that “high-art” subverts expectations. Mainstream films can of course subvert expectations, but when they do they either become polarizing (like Star Wars VIII) or they establish themselves as candidates for “cult” or “quasi-high art” status. This distinction (perhaps like the high-art/mainstream distinction in general) really shouldn’t exist. Subverting expectations doesn’t always have to take the form of giant, provocative twists. Taken literally, a script that subverts expectations is simply a script that is conceived by a writer(s) who has ideas of their own and is not simply putting preassembled parts together. Yesterday is a great example of how a film can subvert expectations without ever seeming weird. For example, when the film opted not to use a predictable cameo, replacing it with another, more powerful one, that subverted my expectations. The film also subverts expectations when, at various moments, it jets away from (or at least nuances) its seeming moral trajectory. The film’s core is very much a classic Rom-Com (a stylization that leads to the most choppiness in the film’s writing) , but Patel and James’ performances even subverts this cliche (just a tad) by making their story feel like a believable rift between mutually-adoring people and not a stock clash between a Flawed-Man and The Woman Who Got Away.

Yesterday is a film written to broadly appeal, much likes it source material. But much like The Beatles, its being a crowd-pleaser should not be read as a knock against its artistic merits. When the magic of “I am the Walrus,” meets  the big-time simplicity of “All You Need is Love” the result is a “Yesterday” that will resonate for many tomorrows to come.