«Yesterday»: romantic comedies were better in the old days

Cinema Wednesdays - Lauriane Pipoz

Director Danny Boyle - whose credits include Bridget Jones, Love at first sight in Notting Hill, Love Actually - has taken on a new romantic comedy. Yesterday is the story of a man who, after an accident, wakes up in a world where the Beatles don't exist. He sets out to plagiarize them, rewriting their most famous songs. All under the watchful eye of his best friend and agent Ellie.

The story of the protagonist's best friend in love is, of course, a familiar one. The originality of the script would naturally lie in the Beatles' plagiarism and its consequences for the main character, Jack. But that's not what happens here: the plot is constantly interrupted by the chase between Jack and his agent, particularly in the second half of the film.

No nuance

We spend far too long with them in a hotel room, and in the end... nothing happens. Because even if we were to assume that this is a romantic comedy, the film would still not be a success. In addition to being bland, the script is incredibly prudish: the characters are so cautious that we can't imagine anything happening between them.

C’est ici un autre problème du film: la psychologie des protagonistes n’est pas du tout aboutie. Entre l’agente qui déclare à qui veut bien l’entendre qu’elle n’est là que pour s’en mettre plein les fouilles à l’amoureux transi si gentil qu’il se réjouit de se faire larguer, difficile de trouver un peu de finesse. De plus, l’hypothèse principale ne tient pas la route: comment la musique aurait-elle pu suivre la même évolution sans un groupe-phare tel que les Beatles? Et leurs sons très sages fonctionneraient-ils encore aujourd’hui, alors que le style musical en vogue n’est pas du tout le même que dans les années soixante? Permettez-moi d’en douter. Ou du moins, si c’est l’avis du scénariste, cette position aurait mérité d’être argumentée.

A very british

I do concede that the film has a too much which has a definite comic effect and could explain this annoying lack of nuance. The completely stereotyped character of the sympathetic, but rather navel-gazing father, for example, works very well: seeing him interrupt his son's piano performance three times for pointless reasons, or snatch the sandwiches available in his dressing room, was a frankly funny experience.

The very british clearly seems to me to be the highlight of the film, unfortunately overshadowed by an underdeveloped script in which the minutes that should be devoted to the problems of plagiarism and guilt or to the history of music are overshadowed by a desire to mention only positive things and an overly conventional love story. Still, it's a pretty good time, thanks to the generally good actors and the well-crafted shots, but it's really not enough to call it a good film - so as not to spoil the suspense for you, I won't mention the ending, but just tell you that it's bad.

Le plagiat, un sujet d’actualité

Great irony: this film about plagiarism is suspected of being plagiarism itself comics Yesterday (2011) by David Blot, free access on Dropbox. Similarities with this work, which also imagines an artist in a world without the Fab Four, seem obvious. Just as the plot bears a striking resemblance to that of the French film Jean-Philippe (2006), qui met en scène un univers sans Johnny Hallyday – un film nettement plus abouti que son pendant britannique. Mais l’intrigue qui se veut être la principale, à savoir l’histoire d’amour, est le point le plus problématique: il s’agit d’un motif qui a été maintes fois traité, et notamment par David Boyle.

If, despite the excessive optimism of Love Actually (2003) and the lack of credibility of Love at first sight in Notting Hill (1999), both of which were great successes at the time, these same flaws are very disturbing in Yesterday. En dépit de ce que ce dernier sous-entend, je me risquerai à penser que l’utilisation des mêmes ingrédients dans une œuvre une quinzaine d’années plus tard ne fonctionne pas forcément. Si l’humour british – sophistiqué et remarquable au milieu de l’omniprésence actuelle des blagues faciles au-dessous de la ceinture – est toujours aussi classe en 2019, le mielleux est, lui, carrément has been.

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Photo credit: © Universal Pictures Int. Switzerland GmbH