Would The Beatles actually be popular in 2019? 'Yesterday' thinks so!
No Content for Old Men
with Matt Craig
In this week's newsletter: A review of the Beatles-inspired musicalYesterday, a bonus review of the excellent Toy Story 4, plus recommendations for something new, something old, and something to stream in the singer-songwriter genre. I pass along an article you must read immediately in the new category "Required Reading" and we look ahead to an exciting movie to come with "Trailer Watch." Enjoy!
Word Count: 1,041 words
Approximate Reading Time: 4 minutes
Yesterday
The World Without The Beatles is Still the World
If ever there were a movie born on third base and headed for home, it was Yesterday. If musical biopics are like chocolate brownies, as I stated a few weeks ago in my review of Rocketman, then a movie featuring the music of The Beatles and starring the patron saint of this newsletter, my dancing queen Lily James, is like a 10-layer molten chocolate cake.
This iteration of the now well-worn genre seemed like it could be the best one yet, gaining access to the library of a band's iconic songs while maintaining full creative control over a story, free from the shackles of band oversight (which held down both Rocketman and especially Bohemian Rhapsody). To extend this ridiculous metaphor one step further, I thought Yesterday could have its cake and eat it too.
By now, you almost definitely know the setup. A failing artist named Jack falls and hits his head, the world goes through a momentary blackout, suddenly he's the only one who remembers The Beatles existed, and he uses their songs to become a massive pop star.
It's a solid but largely unexplored premise. The butterfly effect of The Beatles never existing (Coca-Cola and cigarettes are gone too, as we find out) is not questioned and seemingly has zero effect on the world of the movie. A lot of early reviews have gotten hung up on this fact, frustrated in our post-Game of Thrones universe by the inability to dig several layers below the surface.
The truth is one should not look for complexity or nuance in the screenplays of Richard Curtis, whose mission on earth seems to be spreading simple joy with movies like Love Actually, Notting Hill and Pirate Radio. What's wrong with that? Sure, the existential realities cooked up in Yesterday are unexplained and played for nothing more than comic relief, but what's wrong with a good laugh or two? He's not trying to win Oscars here.
The more interesting criticism is how unique this movie feels to 2019. We live in a time where entire generations have grown up with no firsthand knowledge of The Beatles, while several others experienced them and remember. To the first category, into which I'll include myself, the band exists almost exclusively through their songs. Sure I've read some about the personal lives of John, Paul, George and Ringo (ok maybe not Ringo), but I really am far more interested in the timeless art they've given to the world. The music matters now because of how much it mattered then.
Which is the same thing the movie is interested in. The Beatles' library exists in Yesterday solely as content, with utter disregard for the true meaning behind the songs or the lives of the men who wrote them. The movie quite explicitly frames the songs as precious art that the world deserves and will appreciate independent of context. Which I find interesting, because so much of the value of art comes from its context. Without the context, "Hey Jude" becomes "Hey Dude" in the movie to appeal to millennial audiences. And I do wonder, as does the movie for all of about five minutes before returning to happier thoughts, whether or not The Beatles' music would be so massively popular if it were released today by an unknown recording artist. I have my doubts.
Within the movie the songs definitely feel exploited, even if Curtis and director Danny Boyle did an admirable job assigning narrative to fit various classics. Don't get me wrong, the songs are JAMS, and you're going to want to sing along at some songs and cry at others. Still, the whole thing feels a bit manufactured, since these songs and their corresponding stories are not Jack's stories, and we all know that.
Luckily, the central plot of the movie actually turns out to be the love story between Jack and his longtime friend and kinda-sorta manager Ellie. This is of course Curtis' comfort zone, and he hits all the regular beats while managing to win you over with overwhelming charm and sweetness.
In some ways I want more from Lily James, who is so delightful and lovable that it almost always takes away from her being interesting on screen. Maybe I'm biased--okay I admit I'm definitely very biased--but I'm not sure the drama of "will they or won't they?" work in any of her movies because she gives insufficient or unconvincing reasons why you would ever "won't" her.
Himesh Patel, the relative unknown who plays Jack, seems destined for stardom. He's magnetic and likable, and serves as a more than passable singing replacement for John or Paul. I quite liked him as a leading man, and I liked Ed Sheeran's extended cameo as himself. He manages to come of authentic, which is his brand, and also funny. It's a win for him. Kate McKinnon stays winning as Jack's evil agent, producing laughs every single second she's on screen, though she's clearly operating in a far different movie. It's a problem she's had in all of her non-Saturday Night Live endeavors: she's too funny. Her bits are too over-the-top and too broad to register in anything more grounded than sketch comedy (so far).
If all this talk of evil agents and doomed stardom sounds a bit familiar, it's because this movie takes from the same exact playbook of every musical biopic before it. Rock stars must sell out to corporate overlords, become fake versions of themselves, renounce their past relationships and "drink from the poisoned chalice of money and fame" as McKinnon's character puts it. One can have fame or happiness, not both.
The movie's best moment comes in its twist, when Jack finally combats this realization by coming face to face with a wholly unexpected character (who I won't spoil despite really wanting to talk about it!!). It makes very little sense from a narrative cohesion standpoint, and those without some prior knowledge of The Beatles may not get it at all because it's once again unexplained, but this encounter is electric and the most rewarding few minutes of the whole movie. From there, things wrap up nice and neat as expected.
Who am I kidding? You're definitely going to go see this movie. And you should! It's fun and light and delightful, even if it doesn't hold up under a microscope. The Beatles music is freakin' amazing. And so is Lily James. Case closed.
Required Reading
"The Birdcage" by Mark Harris
Grantland, December 2016 You ever come across a sentence that's just so resonant, so perfectly written, that it makes you stop and reread and think about it for a minute? Well in this five-year-old essay about the blockbusterization of the movie business, there's one of those sentences in seemingly every paragraph. The honest truth is that if you read this article, you almost never have to read my newsletter again, because it articulates all my exact thoughts about the industry more clearly and eloquently than I ever could (but please keep reading the newsletter!). The craziest, and scariest, part is that every single one of Harris' predictions about where the movie landscape was headed came true.
Something New
Toy Story 4 (Theaters): Those who have been reading the newsletter for a while, or who just read "The Birdcage" above know my natural aversion to both sequels and whitewashed mass entertainment vehicles. Pixar has been for the most part immune to this treatment because the truth is, they consistently make the best possible version of their movies (Cars 3 notwithstanding). In addition to the highest quality animation and storyboarding, they are just so good at capturing emotions that resonate across generations. The same material connects to both young audiences in a simplistic way, and adult audiences on a far more complex and profound level. I was blown away by the humor, the emotional stakes, and the plot twists of this movie, and am not ashamed to say it is the best movie I've seen in 2019 (with a giant so far caveat, since the best is yet to come). Go see it!
Black Mirror Season 5 (Netflix): Though this is still technically classified as "TV," the three episodes released a few weeks ago basically operate as standalone hour-long movies. I finally got around to them this week, and as usual, Charlie Brooker and company delivered with formally inventive and surprising material that left me questioning some aspect of technology or modern life. You don't need to have seen any of the previous "seasons" (though you should) to get a kick out of the newest batch, which stars at different times Anthony Mackie, Topher Grace and Miley Cyrus.
Something Old
Crazy Heart (2009): This week we're going to use a very liberal reading of the term "old," because the truth is, the singer-songwriter genre is a relatively new phenomenon. Hollywood's golden years were dominated by traditional movie musicals, and the legacy of hard-living loner geniuses was not really lionized until the turn of the century. Jeff Bridges' portrayal as one such weary songbird earned him an Oscar for Best Actor, fueled by the tunes of the legendary T Bone Burnett (who himself collected a statue for Best Song). Emotional country music ties together a wonderfully tragic character study, with support from Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall.
Begin Again (2013): The first movie that came to my head when I saw the trailer for Yesterday was this criminally underrated John Carney sing-a-long starring Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo. This is the best of Carney's musical trilogy, though I still recommend 2007's microbudget Once and 2016's Sing Street (see below). Overlapping stories of a self-destructive record executive and a rising singer-songwriter do well to accent some seriously sensational musical performances, and leave room for charming drop-ins from James Corden (yes, THAT James Corden) and Adam Levine (yes, THAT Adam Levine).
Something to Stream
Sing Street (Netflix): This time Carney returns to his hometown of Dublin and the time period of his youth (the 1980s) to tell the story of a boy who starts a band to impress a girl. Something about the youthful energy and uncertainty pairs incredibly well with Carney's signature pure-pathos filmmaking style, making this the most emotional of his three entries in the genre. And as always the music is great, this time chalk full of 1980s classics from the likes of Duran Duran and Hall & Oates.
A Star is Born (HBO): This is more of just a public service announcement that this movie is now streaming on HBO. You don't need me to tell you what it is, or sell you on it, just find the biggest television screen possible and the loudest possible stereo sound system and rock out. I won't take this chance to stoke the recent rumors swirling about Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga's real-life romance any further...just search on YouTube their performance from last year's Oscars telecast and make up your own mind.
Trailer Watch: The Current Wars
Does this movie look familiar? It very well might, considering its trailer has been on YouTube for nearly three years. The movie even caught some press after debuting at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. So why are we talking about it now? Because the movie was originally produced by The Weinstein Company, and a few months after TIFF the company fell apart amidst sexual assault charges. It's been on the shelf ever since.
On Tuesday, it popped back up on YouTube with recently-anointed megastar Tom Holland as its preview image (even though it appears he plays a very small part in the movie), a reportedly re-edited cut, and an October release date. By the looks of this trailer, the project seems salvaged. The electricity race between Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch), Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) and Tesla (Nicholas Hoult) is back on!