I believe in Yesterday

What would a world without The Beatles be like? And what would happen if the one person who did remember them capitalized on their songwriting prowess and passed it off as his own? This is the basic “what if” premise of the film, Yesterday, a rom-com fantasy written by Richard Curtis (Notting Hill, Love Actually) and directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire). 

Meet Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), a 20-something Indian-British teacher and aspiring singer-songwriter who can’t seem to break into the music business with his own mediocre pop songs. But we see him plugging away, trying to carve out his niche in the music world with the help of his friend, fellow teacher, and sometimes manager Ellie (Lily James). Ellie has supported Jack’s music career and held a torch for him since he was playing Oasis covers at junior high talent shows. As his manager, she tries to set him up with gigs, but the empty shows only seem to cement his rep as a real nowhere man. 

Jack is ready to bag his music career to go back to teaching because “if it hasn’t happened by now, it will take a miracle,” when said miracle is delivered in the form of a planet-wide 12-second cosmic blackout. In the outage, Jack and his guitar are hit by a bus, and he wakes up in the hospital as the only person left on Earth who remembers The Beatles and their music. He realizes something is off when he says to Ellie, "Will you still feed me when I'm 64?" and she doesn't recognize the lyrics. “Why 64?” she asks quizzically. 

Later, Jack’s friends present him with a new guitar, and he plays the titular song to a set of virgin ears. 

“When did you write that?” Ellie asks. 

“I didn’t write it,” a flustered Jack tries to explain but quickly realizes that none of his friends have ever heard of The Beatles.  

“Do you genuinely not know who The Beatles are?” he asks incredulously. 

“Genuinely,” she responds. 

“Then I’m in a really, really, really complicated situation,” says Jack. 

He races home to do a quick Google search but the only references that turn up are to actual ‘beetles’ (the first of many comical Google searches) confirming that The Beatles have disappeared from the cultural lexicon. 

So Jack, somewhat guiltily, makes the choice to start playing Beatles songs — and passing them off as his own. This is where his moral dilemma intersects with his career aspirations as Jack wrestles with “borrowing” the iconic material to launch his own success. Hilarity ensues as he frantically jots down all Beatles songs he can remember on post-it notes (at least those haven’t disappeared from this version of our cultural fabric!), and we laugh as he struggles to string together the lyrics to “Eleanor Rigby” or gets talked into changing the title of “Hey Jude” to “Hey Dude.” 

Jack’s climb to stardom is somewhat earned the old-fashioned way: he records some tracks, gets played on local stations, and is interviewed on a local cable access channel. Ed Sheeran, who plays himself, is intrigued by Jack’s songwriting and asks him to open for him on tour. This leads to the fame train when Jack is picked up by Sheeran’s (fictional) manager, a slimy caricature of a money-grubbing L.A. music industry executive, played wickedly by Kate McKinnon, who offers him “the poison chalice of fame” -- if he signs with her. 

There are some pop culture icons left out of this cosmically-altered world and there are also a few fun cameos. One is James Corden, also playing himself, and another one (we don’t want to spoil the surprise!) makes a hair-raising appearance that will either satisfy or turn off diehard Beatle fans (Author’s note: I was pleasantly pleased as someone who enjoyed buying into this fantasy Beatles-bereft world; in fact, I watched it twice to get back to this scene again.) 

But in this charming, music-packed comedy, the two lead characters just can’t seem to come together. In the end, Jack has a difficult choice: should he follow his lifelong be-a-famous-musician dream, even if it’s on false pretenses? Or, should he follow his heart with the woman who has supported his dream and loved him for who he is, not how much money he will make? In other words, should he say hello or goodbye? Or just let it be? 

Regardless of whether this rom-com pays off with any real romance between our leads, any movie with Beatles songs on the soundtrack will make you smile and sing along!

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 Director: Danny Boyle

With: Himesh Patel, Lily James, Kate McKinnon, Ed Sheeran, James Corden, Ana de Armas.

On-Demand/DVD Release: September 24, 2019

Rated PG-13

Run time: 116 MIN