Well, this is a Richard Curtis screenplay so if you liked the Four Weddings, Love Actually etc. juggernauts then you'll demand a kind of measured light and dark comedy in the dialogue and scheme. Danny Boyle as director is going to provide plenty of extra visual goodies to keep you amused if the romantic subplot doesn't quite work. But, really, what carries this kind of film more than anything else is the casting and that, at the very least, comes right through. Himesh Patel is a kind of rabbit-in-the-headlights Russell Brand (which means he's more likeable than the real thing) as Jack and he is countered by the energetic and rangy Lily James as Ellie and the pair do compel when they share the screen. My favourite choice, though, is the always welcome sass and sharps of Katie McKinnon whose megamouthed moneygrubbing cynicism feels fresh and (mostly) short of caricature. All the stock, aren't-we-lovely Brits characters do everything they need and even the real pop star as himself Ed Sheeran doesn't embarrass.
OK, so it looks good, flows with light laughs and a feelgood message, does the elephant get a feed? If you presented Beatles hit songs to a public that had never heard them, would they still be hits? There is evident work put into fitting these songs into a more contemporary presentation that allows something like Help as an electric rocker or I Want to Hold Your Hand as a perky acoustic number sound genuinely fresh. But there's also a kind of fall back approach that has most of the songs sounding like Beatles night on Idol or X-Factor. If you've ever seen one of those where twenty-nothing contestants unfamiliar with the back catalogue try filtering them through contemporary stock vocal gymnastics it can be as wincing as a YouTube of Star Spangled Banner fails at football games. The problem is that if you are to carry a concept like this through you really have to include that approach as one of the few graspable handles of veracity. As superbly crafted as the best Beatles melodies are some can easily get smothered. And what are we to make of the song-off scene where Sheeran's fine sounding acoustic pop number is trounced by a schmaltzy Beatles standard? Does the reverence here lie in the notion of great songcraft or great songcrafters?
I don't think that's overthinking things in a film whose what-if concept is dependent upon its audiences sharing its assumption that The Beatles are so unassailable. I'm a massive Beatles fan but a second generation one. I found my way back to the '60s from what I felt was a largely barren '70s. While my ardour was temporarily dampened by punk it returned and is in rude health as I type. It makes me wonder that if the chief targets of this fable are the same millennials as its lead characters, is it only a bold attempt to lure them into the values of their grandparents without the context of the generational conflict that fed the transformative culture of the '60s? Is it a way to push through the infinity of streaming in pursuit of quality or unsubstantiated reverence?
I enjoyed Yesterday (yes, I know there is a clue to my last question in that title alone) but hesitate to recommended it without reservation. In being less about The Beatles than an idea of them how deeply felt can the message of truthfulness really go?
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