The Yesterday film, yes or no?

Good point - I shall resist "improving" it, seeing as how I've not seen it etc

 

You might enjoy it. I'd recommend it to anybody who enjoys romantic comedies and the Beatles.

My wife and I watched it again the other night, and it still holds up. The scene where he meets the only other two people who know their music, and especially the one where he gets relationship advice from an elderly retired Merchant Marine sailor hit me just as hard as the first time.

 

Well, as I said in post one, it’s “unnecessary” to me.


I’ve never been a fan of “reassigned reality” type films, like when you wake up and your life is different as you’ve gone back in time, and there’s been a few Beatles films like that (one where John leaves the Beatles early, music by Martin Carr of the Boo Radleys, I should like it for that reason alone, but I haven’t watched that either)

And seeing as every Richard Curtis film past “Notting Hill” has been ‘a decent idea ruined’, I don’t much want this, it unticks all my boxes.

One day, and it might not be long, I will see it, and possibly it won’t be ‘as bad’, but.

But.

 

If you don't like Richard Curtis films you're unlikely to like it. I gave it go, just to be fair, and I wish I hadn't.

 

Has "necessity" ever been a criteria for film, or indeed any, art form? All art is optional, at the very peak of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:



Unlike you, I enjoy seeing this sort of "what if" story.

That said, there are some people who just do not like much of the stuff I like, and six decades on, I've come to terms with that.

 

Nice pyramid, but no art in there.

I believe some art is more than optional, to me anyway.

 

I liked “Notting Hill”, “4 Weddings” was ok, but “The boat that rocked” is one they basically apologised for in the “extras/deleted scenes”

 

Right at the very top. "Creative activities."

Maslow's point is that without these other things, humans can't really create art. We need air, water, food. We need shelter. We need safety. We need love.

As much as we love it, music unfortunately cannot realistically be considered more important than food, water and air. You have to be alive to enjoy it.

 

The thing I didn't like most was he is so dense. Woman of his dreams right under his nose. Been handed a gift in being entrusted with ushering these Beatles songs into the world.

He was completely soulless and dull/borderline stupid. What this misses is every Beatle has a certain depth of character and intelligence that made them uncommonly talented. John has true wit, Paul has a depth of empathy and understanding that comes across, George is wise beyond his years.

What if he appreciated his gift, gave loads of money to charity, and curated the Beatles legacy in a world that had never heard them?

 

Maybe there should've been a disclaimer at the beginning of Yesterday-
sometimes movies are fantasy, and not realistic.

 

Did you not actually watch the film till the end? I'll put it in a spoiler, because, even a couple of years on, there may be people who haven't seen the film:

Spoiler

He and his friend Rocky uploaded all the Beatles songs that he'd recorded and gave them all away for free. He turned down all of the wealth and fame, and at the end of the film is happily married, and working as a teacher at a school.

 

Yes I saw it - he could have done much more to sell the vision of The Beatles - its not just the music - I thought the end was a bit of a cop out

 

Once again, the Beatles were just guest stars in their own movie. Okay maybe just one Beatle. Okay maybe it wasn't their own movie. Okay nothing to see here. Scroll on down.

 

Their music was the only thing he had access to. He was a singer and guitar player. If he was a visual artist, he could have animated the Yellow Submarine film, I guess, but I'm totally at a loss as to what else he was supposed to have done to "sell the vision".

The world he found himself in lacked those particular artists. I suppose he could have dragged a befuddled elderly sailor onto the stage and he declared him one of the greatest songwriters who ever lived, but in this particular world he wasn't.

 

She was the single best thing about the movie. She was a hoot.

I swore the 2 people who said they remembered the Beatles (and gave Jack John Lennon’s address) were Astrid and Klaus, until I saw them listed as “Leo and Liz” on Wikipedia.

 

I watched most of this last night, because I was near a television set and was too tired to do anything more productive.

First off - I didn’t find the film at all funny. Admittedly, I’m no fan of Richard Curtis’ rather contrived british humour (he’s from New Zealand, but the point holds) but the only intended laughs were very mild ones indeed. The roadie character (a Curtis trope, used in all of the films of his I’ve seen) was very weak indeed and lacked the grandstanding appeal (well, it appealed to some people) of the character Rhys Ifans played in the dire and pandering Notting Hill.

The leads were very likeable (important in this genre) but Ed Sheeran is just a charisma-free zone onscreen and he looked totally uncomfortable in front of the camera. Funnily enough, Madonna (in most of her screen appearances) has the same problem.

I switched off before the end (just before the Lennon visit) because someone came into the room and I frankly felt embarrassed to be watching such lightweight crud. But my switching off may be interpreted as a homage to Lennon himself who, according to Carole King, made a habit of always leaving films (even ones he’d enjoyed) before the end.

I have seen the Lennon scene on youtube, though, and I found it excruciating. Not badly-acted, just sentimental, sickly and WRONG. ‘

I also found Himesh Patel’s renderings of the Beatles’ songs bland and post-modern;but that may have been intentional - I’m sure any Millennial who found themselves in the same position would remove all the guts from those songs and turn them into musak for lifts.

All in all, then, a very ho-hum enterprise. The film will totally fail to connect with people who don’t think much of the Beatles (and such people do exist).

 

And having completed my last post, I went back and watched the ending.


SPOILERS:


Well - what to say? Cheesy and manipulative - I know these ‘feel good’ films have to bend reality somewhat, but anyone who works in the english state school system would’ve found Jack’s choice bizarre, to say the least. As being a teacher in england is rapidly becoming equivalent to being in Special Branch, albeit with much lower rates of pay, the idea of Jack chucking his chance to make a decent amount of money and live worry-free for the rest of his natural in favour wage-slavery in front of a bunch of sullen, hostile juveniles (not the idealised types who appeared in the film) strains credulity beyond breaking point. He could’ve made a couple of million quid, told his agent to go **** herself and retired at 25, married Lily James and the lived the rest of his life happily writing songs behind electronically controlled gates. Now, that would’ve been my idea of a happy ending.

 

This kind of film (the ‘romcom’) makes certain demands of its characters - one being that they be several steps behind the audience and take most of the film to realise what the audience realised in the first two minutes. It’s a trick that’s literally as old as the film industry itself.

 

People like certainly exist in the industry (or did, until they moved onto more profitable areas). The character was a caricature, though - and you can’t be subtle when subtlety isnt’ required.

 

I absolutely hate romantic subplots

 

The romantic subplot is so inconsequential as to not matter, and The Beatles are just a MacGuffin so don't really matter to the film, and there's nothing else in the film. The film doesn't exist.

 

More or less those are my impressions, too. I couldn't even finish it.

But the thing I hate the most is the mandatory stupid shoehorned romantic subplot.

Please no more romantic subplots. No more standing in the rain scenes. Enough is enough

 

I guess you don't remember the two pieces of advice that the elderly sailor gave him on how to live a happy life:

Tell the girl you love that you love her.
Tell the truth whenever you can.

He had to do both. He couldn't continue living a lie.

 

He could’ve admitted the truth and kept the money, as there was no-one else to give the money to.

Also - at the ‘stadium gig’, he seemed to confess that he’d cheated on Lily. Did I miss something there? She said ‘no’ to sex when they were staying at the hotel.

 

Some people would have loved that ending, but I think a far larger number would have thought worse of him.

I'd have to watch it again, but I think she may have been in a relationship with the sound engineer who had the incredibly poorly located recording studio by that time.

Which, now that I think about it, is somewhat unfair to him in the final edit. He became one of the most popular artists in the world, and managed to not score with a girl through the entire experience? Even with Ed Sheeran advising a room full of hangers-on that "Somebody ought to shag him while they have the chance?"