The saga of Yesterday will never end, much to my continued hatred. I hate the movie Yesterday with a fiery passion, for good reason: It gave me such hope, only to fail completely. I love the Beatles; they’re one of my favorite bands in all the world. I love movies about the Beatles; Across the Universe is still a favorite of mind. What’s not a favorite is the Danny Boyle movie Yesterday. Call it what you want, but I hate this movie because it feels like it was a second draft that they just said “good enough” with and made into a movie, and it had so much potential that just got lost in the “Why is this happening?” shuffle of it all.
Himesh Patel is so good in this movie as Jack, but that doesn’t save it when all of a sudden, like five other people also sort of remember the Beatles, or Coca-Cola is also gone because Jack likes it. One of the last memories I have of my father is him asking me to watch this movie with him, and I said no. Granted, I didn’t know that he was dying at the time, but even then, I’d still say no. That’s how angry this movie makes me. Luckily, I am not alone.
Remember when Ana de Armas fans sued Universal because they purportedly rented Yesterday to see her performance as advertised in the trailer, but it turned out she was cut from the movie? Now, the judge has dismissed the case. U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson was originally sympathetic to the plaintiffs until realizing that Peter Michael Rosza and Conor Woulfe rented the movie a second time, thinking that they would be able to watch some kind of director’s cut with de Armas in it, when it was not stated anywhere that would be the case.
All our injuries were self-inflicted during Yesterday, I guess.
At the end of the day, the judge said that essentially Rosza and Woulfe did it to themselves, and honestly, if that’s not the mood after Yesterday, I don’t know what is. Frankly, the worst part is that it made me cry over John Lennon. I don’t dislike Lennon, but as a McCartney girl, I know I picked the better of the two, given … well, Lennon’s history. Still, I think that the movie Yesterday just constantly comes up in the news to haunt me. What did I do other than love the Beatles for this to happen to me? When will enough be enough?
My biggest gripe with this movie is that you’re watching it knowing that it had the potential to be something great. You can feel it while you’re watching. Then it just comes out flat and lifeless and the opposite of the music it is trying to honor. That, to me, is unforgivable. It had such potential to be something special and instead what we got was a boring movie where Ed Sheeran says we should make the lyrics “Hey Dude,” and I just wish the Yesterday saga would end.
(featured image: Universal Pictures)
