You want the movie to succeed. After all its The Beatles. After all, we have Boyle and Curtis helming it. Well, it seems like talented musicians/performers' biopics are the way to go. It is getting a genre of their own.
We had Queen, soon to be followed by Rocketman (Elton John), Blinded By The Light (Bruce Springsteen), Janis (Janis Joplin), Judy (Judy Garland) ... see a trend here.
However, Yesterday was not really about The Beatles, it was asking the question what if The Beatles never existed. A brilliant coffee shop topic.
The movie's premise was simple enough. What if you are the only person who knows about The Beatles and you are an OK battling singer-songwriter. The concept was strong enough. You can cram all the jokes in over what would not exist without The Beatles: Oasis was a given..lol, but some other things I am not so sure.
I think the writers had a big problem with how to end the story. It was a bit forced and left many questions unanswered.
The nice twist was that there were two other people on earth who also knew about The Beatles' songs. It could have gone formulaic in a truth vs evil scenario, but it didn't and for very good reasons. The two basically were heartened that The Beatles songs live on somewhat and not just in their minds.
- how and why did the memory of The Beatles only that got erased?
- if nobody knew about the songs, did they (members of the band) even existed, if they did what were they doing with their lives?
- the assumption that songs which were introduced in the 60s would have the SAME reception if it was released today
The Beatles are what they are now, not just because of the outstanding and timeless songs. The "new energy", the shift in popular culture, their influence on one or two generations of musicians that followed them, their personality and the issues they took up - these are among the many things that make The Beatles what they are.
The Beatles were somewhat responsible for moving popular culture from Wine, Women & Song to Sex, Drugs & Rock n Roll (for better or for worse). Hence to presume that just hearing their songs for the first in our present culture would yield the same results and aftershocks, would be very presumptuous.
If you asked me I'd say, Eleanor Rigby, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Here There Everywhere and I Will as their strongest compositions.
Anyways, do go see the movie, at least the younger folks will get to appreciate that the older folks actually had much better music in their lives.
If I was the director, I will end the movie with a slowed down version of I Will ... the simplest of songs but therein lies the genius that is The Beatles.
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