Hello, cinema savants! This week on The Fansplainers, Ian and Dave discuss director Danny Boyle and writer Richard Curtis’ Yesterday. It’s about Dave’s worst nightmare – a world without The Beatles.
What were The ‘Splainers feelings about this film? Did they enjoy this curious mix of high concept and rom-com? Well, let Ian and Dave fansplain it for you!
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My sister and I thought it was a pretty fab fable too. She’s a teacher so she appreciated an ending that shows that passing on cultural knowledge to the next generation is a worthy calling in life!
Not sure why the critics were so mixed. Maybe they’re overthinking it because, well, the Beatles. At its heart, it’s just a fantasy with a simple message about the importance of love and honesty. But it’s the sign of a good movie that it can generate debate. (Like, wouldn’t Jack be on the hook for all the recording and promotional costs of his album after he gave it away for free?) I’m sitting up there with the fool on the hill (i.e. Dave) about Jack’s ethical dilemma. Even if the Beatles no longer exist and Jack is bringing joy to the world by playing their music, Jack believes his newfound fame and success is built on a lie which has cost him to lose out on love (esp. after Ellie begins dating nice-guy Gavin from the aptly-named Tracks on the Tracks studio.) I think Himesh Patel’s terrifically anguished performance of “Help!” on the rooftop in Gorleston is a real cry for help on Jack’s part…which soon arrives in the form of the two fans and their tip to where he can find John.
Kate McKinnon’s performance did seem out-of-step stylistically. Richard Curtis often pokes fun at Americans and/or the British view of Americans, like in the surreal Wisconsin bar scene in Love Actually where the sexy American girls fall all over the British sandwich guy for his accent liked he’d claimed they would. So I think he wrote Debra Hammer (as in Maxwell’s Silver Hammer?) as an exaggerated personification of All That Is Wrong with the money-driven American entertainment industry. I did like the conference room scene with its yes-people. I think they said they were at Universal Music…who just happened to release the movie’s soundtrack album. Way to product place!
Ed Sherrin is hilarious playing himself, like Keanu Reeves in Always Be My Maybe. Apparently, the role was first offered to Chris Martin who turned it down. (Glad they kept the “It’s no Coldplay” line.) But I think Ed worked out way better for the movie as he’s the same age as Himesh Patel and is a solo artist like Jack, but way ahead of him career-wise.
So many smart touches. Jack’s original song, “The Summer Song” is perfectly generic: like he’s trying hard to crack the song of the summer formula (Mention of summer? Check! Singing about singing a song? Check! Obligatory “whoa-oa” section? Check!) It’s great that it’s “Eleanor Rigby” that he can’t remember all the words to…a song about people whose lives have failed to touch others (the way he feels at the beginning of the movie.)
To get back to the ending, I like the kids-in-the-gym ending. It really struck a chord with me. Our hip elementary school music teacher Mr. Heinz used to play his guitar while we sang the lyrics to pop songs he put on the overhead projector. I’m pretty sure we sang “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da” as the class would snicker when we sang “Life goes on, bra…” (Hee hee…we said “bra!”)
I’m just listening again to get in a Beatley mood for the McCartney concert at Dodger Stadium tonight, and I have to throw in my agreement with Ian on the moral issue. When he wakes up in the hospital, no matter how certain he is that the Beatles existed in his world, there is no evidence in reality that he can find to support it. He starts off crediting them and gets nothing but rolled eyes and blank stares from his friends. Therefore, he can only assume the Beatles and their songs are the result of a delusion which, for all he knows, could have been caused by the accident. Weirder things have actually happened in brains that have suffered trauma. Of course he feels weird about this because it IS weird, but all evidence points to it being one hell of a Mandela Effect and nothing more. As further evidence is provided (other people who remember the Beatles), he does the right thing and gives credit where it’s due. But with the information he had at any given time, I think he did the best and most moral thing he could do.
Hi again – one more point on the matter. Paul McCartney himself claims he wrote Yesterday when it came to him in a dream. I claim I wrote a song called Turpentine that came to me in a dream. As far as we know, Paul and I could have been dreaming of an alternate universe where someone else wrote those songs. Should we not take credit for them? Or should Jack have said he heard the songs in a ‘dream’ but still take credit? I think that would be the best option, but considering what a weird and complex ‘dream’ it was, I still don’t blame him for not doing it.
I liked this film and thought it was a well-written story, but as Dave mentioned, it created a lot of maybe unnecessary tension due to the two people who obviously knew that his songs weren’t original, and I was cringing at the upcoming exposing of this fact by them that never occurred.
I liked and was surprised at the fact that they just wanted to thank him – that was a good twist.
I do think that this is a story about passions, and how sometimes we feel it’s an all or nothing sort of thing. It seemed through the film to set up three possible life tracks for him: 1. play his own music to an ever decreasing fan base and live what would ultimately prove to be a sad and lonely life; 2. quit playing his music to become a ‘normal’, which would be living a lie; 3. live the life of a rock star.
The fact that he was able to walk so easily away from Ellie to go with the new manager (who, I agree with Ian, is the devil), and that he had been blind for so long to Ellie’s love for him, I think spoke to the all or nothing idea. Why could he not just go the rock star route, and also take Ellie with him? I don’t mean that she has to leave her job that minute, but they could have made a life together – he obviously was about the have way more means than before. However, I felt the same way about Elton John and Mary when they reached the same turning point in Rocketman, as well, so maybe that’s just me.
I do think to compare ability in sports and ability in the arts is not a fair comparison, as most sports do have a limited shelf life regarding reaching and working at top potential, unlike the arts, where one can continue to learn and grow in their craft as they age.
I did wonder about how people would accept the songs themselves, as I think the Beatles songs are systematic and progressive in their growth, starting off fairly simple and becoming more intricate and complicated with each album – to just mix them up might seem a bit uneven. But maybe not.
I did wonder why, since he was struggling so much with some of the lyrics, that he didn’t just trot out Wonderwall, which he was obviously an expert at. He had no problem trying his own song on the album.
Overall, the film made me quite sad because even at the end, it reinforced that same all or nothing theme that had been running earlier, as he gave up his life on the stage to become a teacher so that he could have a life with Ellie and their future children. Ellie had already stated earlier that it was the worst alternate, so again – why couldn’t he have both?