Beatles always fly!

Yesterday (2019)
Director: Danny Boyle

Growing up in the late 70s and 80s, popular music formed like soundtrack music of our lives. It was always in the background as we, my schoolmates and I, went on living and doing stuff we needed to as we ventured into adulthood. Of course, there was a time and place to listen to music. Technology had not developed for us to enjoy it on the go. Listening to neighbours blaring their cassette player is not counted. 

Then there was the excitement of listening to new songs on the radio and recording them on cassette tapes as the music played. Once a week, the newspapers would display the Top 10 songs and albums in different cities. The slightly affluent ones amongst us would get their fix of the latest songs recorded at record shops for a fee. Of course, it was not legal, but what the heck, we were and still are in a third world country. 

Bee Gees and Saturday Night Fever essentially filled up most of our pubescent lives. Sporadic input came from the Second British Invasion Bands and the New Wave music. The country was excited in 1983 when RTM decided to be liberal by choosing to screen music videos nominated for the MTV awards that year. That was probably when the terrestrial station had the most viewers glued to the idiot box, excluding the live sports telecasts, of course. I remember watching 'Karma Chameleon', 'Sweet Dreams (are made of this)', 'Let's Dance', 'Every breath you take, 'Uptown Girl', 'What a feeling' and 'Maniac' by Michael Sembello. After an initial screening, the moral guardians of the station decreed that the music video of 'Maniac' was too raunchy for public viewing. A lady training in her yoga doing stretching, ballet-like dancing, doing the splits and running in her leotard was X-rated.

The Beatles was not part of our coming of age process, it was for a generation before us, but they did appear in our consciousness after Lennon's assassination in 1980.

Imagine that that one day, you get up and realise that the legendary bands and their music that formed part of your character suddenly get wiped out. What would you do if you are an aspiring musician and all your attempts at getting your first break has all gone down the tubes?

In 'Yesterday', a light British rom-com, Jack Malik, a struggling artist, finds himself in such a predicament after a minor accident following a brief global power outage. Jack realises that in his post-outage alternate reality, 'The Beatles' music does not exist. Neither do other things like Coca Cola, the band Oasis and Harry Potter franchise. Even Google search repeatedly brings him to beetle the bug or Beetle VW!

In his rapacious desire to reach greater heights in his deadpan musical career, Jack presents the Beatles' songs as his. He almost becomes rich and famous when Ed Sheeran introduces him to bigwig producers in the US of A. Jack feels guilty of his plagiarising ways and is about to lose the love of his love when common sense prevails. He won over his girl, gives up his nearly international stardom to be a music teacher and lives happily forever and ever.

This movie is like a treasure trove for diehard Beatles' fans to identify their song lyrics in the dialogue. There are many insider jokes about the Beatles' background here and there. A little knowledge about how a particular song came to be written would help, e.g. the story behind Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane. So when somebody put out a yellow oblong toy, a Beatles fan would quickly know it is not a rubber ducky but a yellow toy submarine! It is an excellent guessing game to which of their song they would include next.

Perusing online, one would notice that this film is not highly rated. Reviewers lamented that the writer did not explore many loose ends associated with the sudden missing of specific icons from the world record. Everybody just accepted it matter-of-factly. Many also felt that the storyline is so predictable, a copy of generic rom-com. Maybe these people were expected a biopic.

There is a reason why it is called rom-com or romantic comedy. And it is an oxymoron. Romance is not about being funny unless one has a warped sense of humour. A wise man once said, "At the end of the day, romance is just a Greek tragedy with plenty of melodrama with a few rings entangled with it, engagement ring, wedding ring and suffer-ring!

(P.S. The proponents of critical race theory and woke culture sympathisers seem ecstatic with the ample representation of the minority group in this picture. The main character is of Indian descent, and his love interest is white!)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.