Well. Arse to that.
I was really, really willing this to be decent. Went out of my way to will it up the road and down. I puffed special sorts of smoke about the laptop afore I put it on. I scattered special sorts of herbs about the desk. Mon now, saying. Be decent. I didn’t like that everyone was judging it without having seen a frame, decrying the thing on the basis of a this happens this happens this happens Wikipedia synopsis. I don’t think that’s any way to be critiquing a film, whatever its pedigree, however outlandish the plot. I think that’s no way to be going about judging anything. If it was fit to be reduced to a Wikipedia synopsis then they’d just have made a Wikipedia synopsis. Saved a lot of bother.
But. It’s a bit shit, really. For the most part. Some of it works. The Lennon scene that everyone was howling over the head of it when they caught sight of it on the Wikipedia is one of the better sequences, for my money. Lovely, strange, surreal little interlude. Some of Danny Boyle’s directorial flourishes are exciting enough in the moment. Just wee tiny aesthetic choices. Some odd wee decisions made here and there put me in mind of Millions now and then, which is still my favourite Danny Boyle film. But. Overall I’d say this Yesterday is probably the worst thing he’s done since A Life Less Ordinary.
There are several big Richard Curtis showstopping CRY NOW OK CRY NOW scenes that just don’t work at all. They’re unearned and just feel embarrassing. A whole bunch of folk not noticing it’s raining, so to speak. Not just once, at the end. All the way through. None of them land. Useless.
The writing is just lazy as fuck throughout. Like Curtis has forgotten what happened at the start of the scene by the time he’s writing the end of it.
The scene where Beatles Joe plays Yesterday to his friends in the pub, for example. He says right away that it’s not his song, it’s a song by The Beatles. None of them have heard of The Beatles. One of them says “you musicians assume that everyone else has the encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure pop bands that you have. Neutral Milk Hotel. The Beatles.” That’s not exactly word for word what he says, but more or less it is. Beatles Joe can’t believe it. He says “But… this is one of the best songs ever written” and another friend sort of screws her face up and says “you never used to be this cocky.”
He just said he didn’t write it! It’s not his song, he’s not saying his song is one of the best ever written, he’s saying this Beatles song is one of the best songs ever written. He just said it two minutes ago.
Ed Sheeran is crap. I quite like Ed Sheeran, I think he's a fairly charming presence on the chat shows and what not. But he's crap. That’s another thing. Another again is that there a fuck of a lot of outdated Brent-isms and even Tim-isms on display, and none of them work either.
And the ending makes no sense.
But. Whatever. The one interesting thing about it is that it was released in the same year as the far superior Blinded By The Light, both films in which the work of iconic Mojo magazine sacred cow White Folks With Guitars are adopted and repurposed by young British Asians. Blinded By The Light made a lot of that; Yesterday never mentions it. Which I guess is pretty progressive, really.
I dunno. I watched it, anyway. There’s little doubt about that.
