«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.

This is another of the film's problems: the psychology of the protagonists is not at all well-developed. From the agent who declares to anyone who will listen that she's only there to get her rocks off, to the lover who's so sweet he's delighted to be dumped, it's hard to find any finesse. What's more, the main hypothesis doesn't hold water: how could music have followed the same evolution without a flagship band like the Beatles? And would their very wise sounds still work today, when the musical style in vogue is not at all the same as it was in the sixties? I doubt it. Or at least, if that's the view of the screenwriter, it's a position that deserves to be argued.

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.

Plagiarism, a topical issue

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), which features a world without Johnny Hallyday - a far more accomplished film than its British counterpart. But the main plot - the love story - is the most problematic point: it's a motif that's been dealt with many times before, most notably by 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. Despite what the latter implies, I'd venture to guess that using the same ingredients in a work some fifteen years later doesn't necessarily work. If humor british - sophisticated and remarkable amidst the current ubiquity of easy jokes below the belt - is still classy in 2019, the cheesy is, on the other hand, downright has been.

Write to the author: lauriane.pipoz@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: © Universal Pictures Int. Switzerland GmbH