I say this not because director Danny Boyle\u2019s new musical romantic comedy, <\/span>Yesterday<\/i><\/b>, is for this rabid breed of Beatles super-fan \u2014 it definitely is not; there\u2019s not a deep cut to be found \u2014 but because it provides some context for the type of supremely average joe the film centers itself around. When we first meet Jack Malik (Himish Patel) in his hometown of Suffolk, England, it\u2019s clear that despite his striving and strumming (and near-encyclopedic knowledge of Beatles lyrics), he just doesn\u2019t have what it takes to make a career out of being a singer-songwriter. He\u2019s in his late 20s, he\u2019s living at home with his mildly supportive parents, he plays gigs at local coffee shops, and his \u201cbig break\u201d landing on a music festival bill winds up being a big disappointment in a teeny-tiny tent far from the mainstage. He\u2019s finally reached the point (rather sensibly, might I add) where he\u2019s ready to give up on his dream and settle into a life more ordinary \u2014 when something extraordinary happens.<\/span><\/p>\n Jack is biking home after telling his manager\/childhood friend Ellie (Lily James) that he\u2019s played his last show when out of nowhere, a worldwide blackout hits. The power is out for a good 12 seconds, and when it flickers back on, Jack barely has time to register what\u2019s about to (literally) hit him. Being run over by a tractor trailer will do pretty strange things to a person\u2019s head, so it takes a while for him to register what he missed while he was in the hospital \u2014 namely, that The Beatles have been erased from existence. As one of the only people on the planet who seems to remember the lads from Liverpool (alongside other random things like Coca-Cola, Oasis, and cigarettes, although Boyle and screenwriter Richard Harris never make any effort to explain this central plot point), he sees an opportunity for himself, hurriedly scribbling down as many songs and lyrics as he can remember so he can begin passing Lennon-McCartney gems off as his own.<\/span><\/p>\n Because the songs are so universal and so genius, the film ignores the current state of the music industry and simplistically posits that anyone in this position with an ounce of musical inclination would rocket to overnight superstardom. Like Jack, who somehow gets the opening slot on Ed Sheeran\u2019s world tour, signs with an agent (Kate McKinnon playing, well, a very Kate McKinnon character), and leaving his old life behind. Essentially, he\u2019s living the daydream of middle-aged dads everywhere \u2014 until he\u2019s forced to choose between being the world\u2019s biggest superstar or being in a relationship with Ellie, who has apparently pined for him since they were young. (He\u2019s just been too self-absorbed to recognize it.) This all leads to a rather tasteless scene about two-thirds of the way through the film that posits that John Lennon would have led a happier (longer) life, had he tempered his artistic goals and settled for less. (Reader, it is here that I gently wept.) That\u2019s right, folks: Much like last year\u2019s equally flawed high-concept film <\/span>Tully<\/span><\/i>, this is a parable about the virtues of settling.<\/span><\/p>\n To sum things up, presumably engineered at some sort of \u201cmega-marketing meeting\u201d (in the words of McKinnon\u2019s character) full of studio executives, <\/span>Yesterday <\/span><\/i>\u2014 much like its shockingly average protagonist \u2014 is technically proficient on every level but never rises to the level of the source material. I do expect, however, that it will sell plenty of greatest hits compilations to boomers eager to convince their kids (quite rightly, I\u2019ll add) that The Beatles are better than Ed Sheeran. You know him \u2014 there\u2019s one of him in every circle of loose acquaintances: the guy (or gal or nonbinary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":12061,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,340],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-movie-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/crookedc-01.svg\")
<\/span><\/p>\nGrade: C<\/span><\/h3>\n
1 hr., 56 min.; rated PG-13 for suggestive content and language<\/em><\/h5>\n
\nJoin our mailing list<\/a>! Follow us on Twitter<\/a>! Write<\/a>\u00a0for us!<\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"