Yesterday (film)

Yesterday(Film)

The cinematic world of Richard Curtis (film-maker and scriptwriter) is a multiverse – of sorts. The premise of Yesterday (a Curtis-written and Danny Boyle-directed film) is a strange switch in space-time to a world identical (or at least very similar) to our own, apart from the curious fact that certain pop cultural events have never happened (Coca-Cola, Harry Potter and, importantly, the Beatles).

But the switch is also strangely incomplete, in that certain people, including the film’s protagonist, retain the memory of “our”, pop-culturally complete world (including, importantly, the memory of Beatles tunes and lyrics).

Curtis-world sports, in addition to, or in artistic subtraction from, its multiverse, a very one-dimensional side as well. This is its dramatic scheme. One of the pop cultural phenomena that has manifestly survived the strange space-time flip in Yesterday is the Curtis film Notting Hill.Indeed, this is more than survival: it is a triumphant colonisation of the New World. As some reviewers have pointed out, the plot and character trappings are pretty much the same, apart from the swapping of genders between star and nice nobody: boy doesn’t get/overlooks/loses girl; gets her in a dramatic public denouement; the Greek chorus of slacker friends; the especially amoral, but likeable, friend…

Perhaps Curtis has a special trans-dimensional phone line to send his stuff in on.

To be a bit fairer: there are a couple of distinguishing features in Yesterday.The jobbing singer that rises to stardom by remembering Beatles songs is ably played by Himesh Patel, who made his name in the TV soap, Eastenders. He aptly manages the trite moral journey from deception and greed to remorse and repentance (which is all mirrored in the romantic subplot). The interesting moral question as to whether one can be guilty of plagiarising a band that has never existed in this particular version of the Curtis-verse is not deeply explored (at a meta-level there is clearly no guilt in plagiarising Notting Hill).

The other distinguishing feature is, on reflection, a bit morally creepy, although this fact is obscured at the time by the exciting romantic rush of events.

The scene is Wembley stadium, a moment of triumph for the Beatle-channelling Patel character, who for reasons of now unbearable guilt is about to publicly confess to (non?) plagiarism. Before that, he causes his lost love interest to be inveigled back stage, whereupon, to her consternation she is projected onto the vast Stadium screen. Our star declares his undying love to the astonished woman, and asks for her forgiveness and commitment. All the while the crowd observes, and roars their approval.

“Gaslighting” is a term for the undermining behaviour of controlling men. The film’s scene suggest a one off new term of “back projecting” - epic controlling behaviour, in a different style.

The film is saved, just about, by the main thrust of its basic premise – is any world imaginable without the Beatles’ songs? Hearing them sung, over pub tables, in studios, in stadiums, to audiences fictionally awe-struck, is powerful. They are, we filmgoers are warmly reminded, very great songs. Patel is a very good proxy or “plagiarist” performer.

Although Patel’s character is a repentant Beatles’ plagiarist, there’s a scene near the end where compares himself to Harry Potter. No one has heard of Harry Potter. 

Does one detect the temptation for a sequel film, about a literary smash success in the multiverse? After all, the prose style of the Potter books is not too challenging if you can remember the plots…

July 2019