‘Yesterday’ gets all my loving

Yesterday (2019)

Directed by Danny Boyle

If you buy into screenwriter Richard Curtis’s rose-colored idealism of love, the kind presented in movies like “Notting Hill” and “Love Actually,” you may very well be in the minority…but you will almost certainly love “Yesterday” (written by Curtis and directed by Danny Boyle). Every Christmas, war breaks out between those who think “Love Actually”—with its complicated, and yet so often convenient, stories of falling in love—is one of the best Christmas rom-coms (AKA the correct opinion), and those who think it’s the absolute worst. I predict the same people will take the same sides after seeing “Yesterday,” in which a solar flare causes almost everyone in the world to forget about the Beatles (and also many other things, which randomly and hilariously pop up throughout the movie). But Jack (Himesh Patel) remembers. A struggling singer-songwriter, Jack Malik is hit by a bus at the exact moment of the solar flare and subsequent worldwide power outage. When he realizes that his friends have forgotten all about John, Paul, George, and Ringo, he capitalizes on the opportunity to record all of their songs as his own. But his swift rise in fame complicates his already complicated relationship with his young manager Ellie (Lily James) and begins to weigh on his conscience. Increasingly, Jack struggles to carry that weight.

Music, actually, is all around. And “Yesterday” is a wonderful reminder of just how powerful music (and especially the music of the Beatles) can be, not just for the fictional characters who get to hear the Beatles catalog fresh for the first time, but for the audience who gets to imagine what that world would be like. Even though the Beatles get more of my Spotify play time than almost any other artist, visualizing a world in which their music would be wiped from my memory, from Spotify, and from the CD folder in my car, made me really listen to Himesh Patel’s versions and understand how the people in “Yesterday” felt as they listened to those lyrics for the first time. Curtis’s “Yesterday” script uses music the same way his “Love Actually” script uses Christmas (and also, now that I think of it, Christmas music)—to tap into emotions in, frankly, unfair ways. But however corny or sappy that might be, I find it difficult to argue its effectiveness. Like Joni Mitchell, Richard Curtis has surely taught many cold English wives (and husbands, and teens, etc. etc.) how to feel.

Breakout star Himesh Patel brings all his talents to the role of Jack Malik. He can be funny, he can be distraught, and he can sure sing the heck out of some Beatles songs. The 28-year-old, longtime “EastEnders” regular finally breaks into the world of film in a big way. He’s a bonafide star. On the other hand, I could have done without Kate McKinnon as Jack Malik’s type-A new agent. McKinnon is terrific on “Saturday Night Live,” but whenever she stars in a movie it seems like she feels the need to play a heightened, caricatured, “SNL” version of whatever her character is supposed to be. Her performance distracts from the character who we’re meant to care about.

For me, “Yesterday” was pure, unadulterated joy. That’s coming from someone who 1) adores the Beatles and 2) doesn’t mind being swept into one of Richard Curtis’s predictable rom-com scripts. There will be haters, but something that made me this happy earns my recommendation.

7.5/10