Yesterday (2019 film)

Yesterday is a 2019 romantic comedy film directed by Danny Boyle and screenplay by Richard Curtis, based on a story by Jack Barth and Curtis. Himesh Patel stars as struggling musician Jack Malik, who suddenly finds himself the only person who has ever heard of the Beatles and becomes famous after taking credit for their songs. The film also stars Lily James, Joel Fry, Ed Sheeran, and Kate McKinnon.

Yesterday was announced in March 2018. Filming began the following month around England, particularly Norfolk and Halesworth in Suffolk. Photography also took place at Wembley Stadium, Principality Stadium, and in Los Angeles. The filmmakers paid $10 million for the rights to use the Beatles’ music; although none of the band members were involved, Boyle received approval for the project from them or their families.

Yesterday had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in May 2019, and was released in the United Kingdom and the United States in June 2019, by Universal Pictures. The film grossed $152 million worldwide against a production budget of $26 million. It received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the premise, performances, and musical sequences, but criticism for its familiarity and not exploring the concept further.

Plot

Jack Malik is a struggling singer-songwriter from Lowestoft who plays gigs to tiny audiences and is ready to give up, but his manager and childhood friend Ellie Appleton encourages him not to. During a freak 12-second global blackout, Jack is hit by a bus. After recovering, he sings the Beatles song “Yesterday” for his friends, who don’t recognize it. He discovers that the entire world is unaware of the Beatles and their music (as well as other obscure items, such as cigarettes and Coca Cola). He begins performing Beatles songs, passing them off as his own.

Ellie has Jack record a demo with Gavin, a local music producer. Following a performance on local television, Jack is invited by pop star Ed Sheeran to play as his opening act in Moscow. Ellie cannot join him because of her day job as a schoolteacher. Impressed that Jack claims to have written “Back in the U.S.S.R.” just for the occasion on the flight, Sheeran challenges him to a songwriting “duel”, which he immediately concedes after Jack sings “The Long and Winding Road”. Sheeran’s scheming manager Debra Hammer invites him to come with her to Los Angeles to be a big star. At his going-away party, Ellie confesses that she has always been in love with him; he leaves, conflicted.

Jack starts recording an album at EastWest Studios, but cannot remember the lyrics for “Eleanor Rigby”. To jog his memory, he goes to the Beatles’ hometown of Liverpool, visiting landmarks such as Strawberry Field, Penny Lane, and the grave of Eleanor Rigby. Ellie surprises him on his last night in Liverpool, and they spend a drunken evening and kiss, but Ellie realizes that if they slept together, it would be a “one-night stand”. The next day she tells him she can’t be a part of his celebrity life, which he needs to pursue without her. Jack returns to Los Angeles, heartbroken and desperate to have a normal life again, and Ellie begins dating Gavin.

The record label prepares to launch Jack’s debut album, overriding his choices of Beatles album titles to name it One Man Only, hyping his supposed talent. He has a nightmare in which Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are about to expose him as a fraud on The Late Late Show with James Corden. He persuades the record label to launch the album with a rooftop concert in Gorleston-on-Sea near his home. Two fans, who have been quietly stalking him since his debut, corner him after the performance and tell him they know he didn’t write the songs because they remember the Beatles too. Jack begins to panic, but the fans actually thank him – they were in despair that the Beatles’ music was gone forever, and they are grateful that someone with Jack’s talents are able to bring the songs to life. As an act of gratitude, they give him the address of John Lennon, who has survived into old age in obscurity. Lennon doesn’t understand why Jack has come to see him, but reports that he has lived a happy and satisfying life with the woman he loves; he advises Jack to pursue his own love, and to tell the truth whenever he can.

Jack calls in a favour from Sheeran and joins him on stage at Wembley Stadium. Jack confesses to the crowd that he plagiarized the music, declares his love for Ellie, and uploads the songs free to the internet, sabotaging the record release and enraging Debra. With Gavin’s blessing, Jack and Ellie become a couple, marry, and start a family. Jack gives up stardom to become a music teacher.

Cast

In addition, James Corden and Michael Kiwanuka appear as themselves, and Robert Carlyle makes an uncredited appearance as John Lennon.

Production

Writing

Yesterday began as a 2012 screenplay, Cover Version, by Jack Barth. Barth had been struggling to sell screenplays for decades, and conceived the story when it occurred to him that “if Star Wars hadn’t been made and I just came up with the idea for Star Wars, I bet I wouldn’t be able to sell it”. In Barth’s script, a “meditation on professional disappointment”, Jack did not find success with the Beatles songs.

An early version of the screenplay was worked on by Mackenzie Crook, who intended to direct; Crook left to work on his television series Detectorists. The script was passed to the production company Working Title. Years later, while working on clearance rights for the Beatles songs, a Working Title producer mentioned the screenplay to filmmaker Richard Curtis, who decided to buy it and rewrite it as a romantic comedy. On Curtis’s insistence, the screenplay is credited to Curtis, and the story credited to Curtis and Barth.

Curtis told interviewers he did not read Barth’s script, preferring to use the premise to write his own version. He told Den of Geek: “I sometimes found when I worked with original material that it doesn’t come from the heart. So I tried to write a whole film that meant something to me, rather than having too much extra information.” However, according to Barth, the final film includes many elements of his screenplay, including John Lennon as a wizened fisherman and a joke about Harry Potter. Curtis credited the Harry Potter joke to a suggestion from Sarah Silverman, who is thanked in the credits.

Barth complained that Curtis had taken sole credit for the screenplay and damaged him financially. He felt that Curtis had changed the story to make Jack a successful songwriter as a reflection of Curtis’s own career: ” met Rowan Atkinson at Oxford, he came out of Oxford and immediately rode Rowan Atkinson to huge success in his early twenties. He’s never been knocked out, as far as I know. Why wouldn’t  become the most successful songwriter in the world?”

Casting

In March 2018, it was announced that Curtis and director Danny Boyle were working on a musical comedy set in the 1960s or 1970s following “a struggling musician who thinks he’s the only person who can remember the Beatles”, with Himesh Patel cast in the lead role. Boyle convinced Patel was the right choice after listening to him perform the Beatles songs “Yesterday” and “Back in the U.S.S.R.” during auditions. Boyle felt that Patel’s voice had soul. Patel sang and performed guitar and piano himself. Ed Sheeran’s supporting role was originally intended for Coldplay singer Chris Martin, who turned it down.

Later in March 2018, Lily James and Kate McKinnon joined the cast. Boyle informed the surviving members and widows of the Beatles about the film and received a reply he described as “lovely” from Beatles drummer Ringo Starr. In April 2018, it was revealed that Sheeran had joined the cast and would potentially also write new music for the film, which would also include Beatles songs. Later that month, Ana de Armas and Lamorne Morris joined the cast. In May 2018, Sophia Di Martino, Joel Fry and Harry Michell joined.

Filming

Filming began on 21 April 2018, with production in the United Kingdom starting on 26 April 2018, with scenes filmed all around Suffolk in Cantley, Halesworth, Dunwich, Shingle Street, Latitude Festival and Clacton-on-Sea, Essex. A casting call was issued for extras in overnight scenes shot immediately after Sheeran’s four consecutive concerts at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales in May 2018. A further 5,000 extras appeared in scenes at Gorleston-on-Sea Beach in Norfolk in June 2018. Wembley Stadium was also used to film a concert scene. Filming also took place in Liverpool, making use of Penny Lane, Liverpool John Lennon Airport, Lime Street Station and the Queensway Tunnel.

In February 2019, it was announced that the title of the film was Yesterday. It is estimated to have cost around $10 million to get the rights for the Beatles’ songs to be featured in the film, with the rights to their music being held by Apple Records and Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Scenes with de Armas, who played another love interest for Jack, were cut as test audiences felt it made Jack less sympathetic.

Release

Yesterday was initially set for a September 2019 release, but was moved up to 28 June 2019, largely as a result of a copyright suit filed by Paul McCartney. The rights to some of the earlier Beatles songs used in the film would revert to McCartney in the autumn of 2019, and Sony Music wanted to get ahead of it.

The first official trailer of the film was released on 12 February 2019. The film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on 4 May 2019. A local screening of the film took place at the Gorleston Palace cinema on 21 June 2019. Universal spent $75.4 million promoting the film worldwide.

Reception

Box office

Yesterday grossed $73.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $80.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $153.7 million, against a production budget of $26 million. This includes over £13.8 million ($17.8 million) grossed in the United Kingdom.

In the United States and Canada, the film was projected to gross $10–15 million from 2,603 theatres in its opening weekend. The film made $6.1 million on its first day, including $1.25 million from Thursday night previews. It ended up slightly exceeding projections and debuting to $17 million, finishing third behind Toy Story 4 and Annabelle Comes Home. In its second weekend the film made $10.7 million, again finishing in third (behind Spider-Man: Far From Home and Toy Story 4), then grossed $6.8 million in its third weekend, falling to fifth.

In other territories, the film opened to $7.8 million, including $2.8 million in the United Kingdom (where it finished second behind Toy Story 4) and $2.5 million in Australia. Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $45 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues. However, Universal officially took an $87.8 million loss on the film, which Deadline deduced would eventually result in a $26.5 million profit after TV and video sales were taken into account.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 63% based on 353 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The website’s critics consensus reads: “Yesterday may fall short of fab, but the end result is still a sweetly charming fantasy with an intriguing—albeit somewhat under-explored—premise.” On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 55 out of 100, based on 45 critics, indicating “mixed or average reviews”. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “A–” on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported 87% of audience members gave the film a positive score, with 63% saying they would definitely recommend it.

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film four out of five stars, writing “although this film can be a bit hokey and uncertain on narrative development, the puppyish zest and fun summoned up by Curtis and Boyle carry it along.” Robbie Collin also responded positively in his review for The Daily Telegraph, saying the film “rallies in style for a beautifully judged and surprisingly moving finale, which owes a lot to Patel and James’s chemistry.” Owen Gleiberman of Variety, meanwhile, was less enthusiastic, claiming the film had little soul and calling it a “rom-com wallpapered with the Beatles’ greatness.” Laura Snapes of The Guardian called Yesterday “the latest jukebox movie to put its women on mute.”

Beatles’ reactions

Paul McCartney revealed on an episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that he and his wife Nancy Shevell snuck into a cinema in The Hamptons to see the film and “loved it”. Boyle also sent copies of the completed film to Ringo Starr and his wife Barbara, as well as George Harrison’s widow Olivia, and received “lovely messages” from both parties. John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, also approved of the film’s depiction of her husband.

Accolades

Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Recipient(s) and nominee(s)	Result	Ref(s)
Awards of the Japanese Academy	March 6, 2020	Best Foreign Film	Yesterday	Nominated
Blue Ribbon Awards	January 22, 2020	Best Foreign Film	Yesterday	Nominated
Golden Trailer Awards	June 29, 2019	Best Music	Universal Pictures andMotive NYC	Nominated
Goya Awards	January 25, 2020	Best European Film	Yesterday – Danny Boyle	Nominated
Hollywood Music in Media Awards	November 9, 2019	Outstanding Music Supervision – Film	Angela Leus	Nominated
		Best Soundtrack Album	Yesterday	Nominated
Montclair Film Festival	May, 2019	World Cinema	Danny Boyle	Won
Music City Film Critics’ Association Awards	January 10, 2020	Best Music Film	Yesterday	Nominated
Toronto International Film Festival	September, 2019	People’s Choice Award	Favorite Comedy Movie	Nominated
San Diego Film Critics Society	December 9, 2019	Best Use of Music in a Film	Yesterday	Nominated
St. Louis Film Critics Association	December 15, 2019	Best Soundtrack	Yesterday	Nominated
		Special Merit (for best scene, cinematic technique or other memorable aspect or moment)	Jack visits cottage.	Nominated
Saturn Awards	September 13, 2019	Best Fantasy Film	Yesterday	Nominated
Teen Choice Awards	August 11, 2019	Choice Summer Movie	Yesterday	Nominated
		Choice Summer Movie Actor	Himesh Patel	Nominated
World Soundtrack Awardas	August 12, 2019	Film Composer of the Year	Daniel Pemberton	Nominated

Comparisons

As remarked-upon in the media, a number of other works have had a similar premise or theme involving parallel worlds or time travel. These include the 2011 French graphic novel Yesterday by David Blot and Jérémie Royer (the title, again, alluding to the Beatles song), the 2010-12 Japanese manga I’m a Beatle (僕はビートルズ, Boku wa Bītoruzu) by Tetsuo Fujii and Kaiji Kawaguchi, the 1990s British sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart, the 2006 French film Jean-Philippe, and Nick Milligan’s 2013 novel Enormity. Danny Boyle has said he was not aware of earlier works with similar premises when he read the script, but had become aware of a French film and British sitcom with a similar premise.

The film was also compared to Blinded by the Light (2019), a British comedy-drama produced around the same time. This film concerns an aspiring British Asian writer inspired by the songs of Bruce Springsteen.