Hey, Dude

Conditions: Quiet, so quiet.

Film Review: Yesterday. 

This is a really sweet film about a very focused young man who has to suddenly deal with the pressures of fame and fortune due to, well, being the only person who remembers the Beatles after a mysterious world-wide blackout apparently zaps their music from existence.  It's a premise straight out of the Twilight Zone, but Danny Boyle very much grounds this film in it's ordinary "pub musician" lead character and his early attempts to make it with his own music and his circle of friends.  There's never any explanation for the blackout or anything, which I think is the right way to handle it. 

Once Jack finds out that no one knows who the Beatles are he realises this is his big chance and he frantically starts assembling their back catalog from memory and singing their music at small events, passing it off as his own.  He gets noticed fairly quickly and fame and fortune beckon.  Ed Sheeran has quite a large role in this film and comes across fairly well as someone confronted with this new amazing talent that is simply better than he is.  it's kind of a thankless role for Ed but he's very convincing in it as he helps Jack realise his dream.  Kate Mackinnon spices up the movie as Ed's manager who takes Jack off to California to rebuild his life and image.  She's overacting a bit and contrasts starkly with the rest of the cast but her character is the embodiment of the perils of fame and fortune that Jack buys into, in many ways the devil Jack has to dance with.  The heart of the story though is Jack's slow realisation of his relationship with longtime friend and manager Ellie.  A teacher, she stays behind for her job when Jack gets famous, and gradually Jack realises what he's lost.  It's a very sweet and natural chemistry between the two and their roller coaster story of love.  Aww.

There is perhaps a question to be asked over whether people would actually react the same way now to Beatles music as they did back in the 60's.  The movie treats it as given that everyone is astounded by it, but I can't help but have a nagging feeling that the music would be seen more as quaint, or too simple, for modern audiences to care too much.  It's a difficult question because this is stuff we've known since we were kids, so how can you evaluate it separately?  I think for most the treat here is to just watch a bunch of great Beatles songs get belted out at various points of the film.  In some ways it kind of feels that that overwhelms the story they're trying to tell, like an action film being so stuffed with car chases they overwhelm the actual story being told.  Jack's crisis involves him coming back to Britain and there's a very moving scene with a key historic character that kind of puts things into perspective, ready for the cathartic finale.  Like I said, it's a very sweet film, acted well and the music entertains.  Three and a half submarines out of five.

- peace out