A couple days back, Lisa and I went to see “Yesterday.” When it was finished, Lisa said “I loved that!” and I replied “That might be the most perfect movie ever made.”
I admit that last was a little overblown. “Yesterday the movie is not quite in the strata as “Yesterday” the song. It’s a little too cute in places, and it takes great liberty with reality and realism. It’s one of those films whose critic scores are lower than its popularity scores—which tends to say it’s really a fun watch, but don’t expect any Ocsar nods. And that’s fair enough. I can pull out my critical voice and cut swathes into it if I need to. But, really, I don’t.
Yes, I loved the music. Of course I did.
And there are some surprises, that I won’t go into here, that hit me pretty hard. I’m of the right age, I suppose for some of those to work well on me. I’ll just leave it at that.
But what I loved the most about this story is that there, wrapped in the gauze of a good-not-great romantic comedy (that is probably saved mostly by Lily James), is a brilliant set of commentaries on what it means to be an artist. The story touches on genius in ways that surprised me. It touched on fandom, and fame, on ethics, and on the joy that art creates and the reason it exists. In this area, if not in the romantic comedy aspect, Himesh Patel was a brilliant choice as the lead. His belief in what his art is and what it means shines through his naivete throughout the story.
It’s a wonderful thing, I think, to find a story that captures so much about what it means to be part of an art form.
So, yeah, I was probably wrong. It’s not the most perfect movie ever made. But that’s the way of things, you know? There is no perfect. At the end of the day, there are only things that make you feel something.
“Yesterday” made me feel like writing something.
So, at the end of the day (in a life?), I agree with Lisa.
I loved it, yeah, yeah, yeah!