Review of Yesterday (2019) by Hnestlyonthesly — 07 Oct 2019

I always had the intention of hate-watching this movie. From the first time I saw the trailer months ago, it seemed clear that someone in some business room in New York had written down a hipster trash madlib five minutes before their pitch-meeting and this was the outcome. Beatles music slash quirky actors slash scenario in which everyone gets to act like they’re discovering said Beatles music for the first time in 2019 seems like some pretty obvious chummed water for thirsty clout-chasers (thanks teenager who taught me that term last week) like myself. Anyway, Wife and Friend were too stupid to avoid it, so I went to roll my eyes and drunkenly heckle the screen.

The trailers were ominous for this one: actually showed the trailer for Yesterday ten minutes before we saw it. People in the audience were audibly upset. One man shouted something like, “Is this what they do in movies now? Show you the movie before you see the movie?” And then instead of Yesterday, we got the first three minutes of The Dead Don’t Die, as if the universe was telling us it would be better if you didn’t.

In short, the trailer is the movie. There is no twist, no mind-bending rabbit hole you have to follow, nothing to untangle. If we can move into spoiler territory for a moment, some annoyances: 1) Wonderwall is missing from their new world, but is never covered by Jack, 2) the film never deals with any of the gaping plot holes of multiverse concept it’s created for itself, e.g. if Wonderwall doesn’t exist how do Jack and Ellie meet each other in middle school when Ellie is his manager for the Wonderwall cover?, and–this was always my big bugbear–3) how do we have modern pop culture and pop music without the influence of the Beatles in the first place?

After having had a few weeks to stew over this, why is Ed Sheeran billed as the Salieri of songwriting? I feel like it’s probably supposed to be pretty tongue-in-cheek, but why do they have an impromptu songwriting competition after ten minutes? Is that how real music is written?

I like the idea that the magic of the film gives Jack a way of dealing with every artist’s feelings of imposter syndrome, but in his case his feelings of inadequacy are actually about being an imposter, not just by feeling like one. The ending is clearly an old man’s understanding of the internet and how music sharing works, as Friend says. “I will release all these files as downloads for you to share for free” is the fairy godmother ending of someone who willfully misunderstandings the way that Jack’s label will sue his ass for copyright infringement till kingdom come.

Friend and Wife agreed that the film wouldn’t have been able to stand on its own without Beatles music, which is all the confirmation I needed for its bogus premise. Hard pass.

Vanity Fair confirmed my feelings with some passive aggressive questions. It correctly notes the weird tone deafness of Saw Her Standing There and odd romcom trope of Megging the main character so that we must imagine him uglier than he actually is.