Boyled in Love
Kim is a member of SAG/AFTRA through some obscure back-door caused by her long membership in Actor’s Equity. She was in an Italian film starring Daryl Hannah (the movie was called Ole!), but that episode didn’t figure into the equation. What did figure in was paying several thousands of dollars for the back dues for initiation or whatever it was. I remember the discussion about it at the time and we both figured that the free screening videos every year for the Academy Award nominated films was justification enough for the membership.
Well, tonight SAG/AFTRA earned their fees several times over. We got invited to a pre-premier, one-time only showing of Danny Boyle’s new film, Yesterday. The SAG/AFTRA Foundation Robin Williams Theater on West 54th Street seats 154 people, so we got lucky and she signed up early enough to get tickets.
They warned us to get there early and we overshot on a low traffic day. We had time for a deli dinner across the street from where the line was forming. I lingered over my salad while Kim got in line where I could see her. That’s when I heard the couple behind me get into a heated discussion about their separation seventeen years prior. I got up with a lost appetite when I heard the woman say, “I know back then I said I didn’t want or need anything from you, but things have changed now….”. That was my cue to exit stage left ASAP to SAG/AFTRA. Kim was convinced they were practicing a scene, but I heard way too much angst for that to have been acting.
We got good seats for the movie (up close like I like them) and left our deli friends to their own love woes. Yesterday is an unlikely movie about a guy who lives through an unlikely moment when the world hiccups momentarily. That 12 seconds when all the lights go out around the world, erases the Beatles from existence and from almost everyone’s consciousness (except his). As implausible as that seems, the genius of Danny Boyle is that it’s done such that the audience is easily able to suspend disbelief. The process of discovery and acceptance by the lead actor Himesh Patel is a work of art all by itself.
Hidden inside this absurd situation, where Patel becomes the world’s greatest song writer and singer by mimicking all the great Beatles hits which the world has supposedly never heard, is a beautiful and poignant love story. Unlike Rocketman about Elton John or Bohemian Rhapsody about Freddy Mercury, this rise of a musical phenom has the realism without all the excesses. Patel’s love for his school teacher manager is subtle and confused and does not follow the pattern of typical rock and roll fame. And it all happens so fast that it almost makes you question whether the Beatles songs are THAT good that they would gain immediate worldwide acclaim in the absence of the 60’s or the absence of the pop icons of John, Paul, George and Ringo.
The writer (Richard Curtis) is British, as is Boyle, so they had an easy time making this about a young Indian man who lives in Clacton-on-Sea and gets sucked into the whirlwind of L.A. by a new manager, played fabulously by Kate McKinnon, only to find his way back to England, first to Liverpool to retrace the steps of the Beatles and eventually to Clacton-on-Sea for his grand musical debut.
What I always enjoy most about Danny Boyle’s work is that it is multi-dimensional by design. Yesterday makes you think about yesterday, about the amazing body of work that the Beatles have left us and about the importance of love in the context of finding happiness in life. It is the intersection of music and comedy, which is a very rich place from which to craft a great movie.
Boyle, Curtis and Patel honored the SAG/AFTRA crowd by coming to the showing and sitting on stage to discuss the film and take audience questions. They were all three amazingly articulate (not surprising for Boyle and Curtis as men of vast experience, but somewhat surprising for Patel since this was his first feature film). This audience of movie professionals were very impressed by the movie despite the modest Rotten Tomatoes score of 62 so far (only 47 reviewers to date). I believe that if Yesterday was a stock, I would declare it a strong value buy. It will do much better when it gets out to a broader audience in my opinion.
I was able to squeeze in a question of Boyle by asking them how Paul and Ringo and the wives of George and John felt about the movie. His answer was very complete. He explained that they had to approve the project since they have strict rules about what their music can be used for (no Donald Trump rally rousing, for instance) and they agreed that the notion of their existence being erased was probably a funny concept. Since finishing the movie, they have all commented positively to Boyle except for Paul, who has not seen it yet (presumably by choice) and Yoko, who acknowledged receipt and viewing, but had no comment. Boyle suggested that those who know Yoko say that that was perhaps the best thing she could have said about the film since she is not much on complimenting anything.
I strongly suggest you all consider seeing the film. It is certainly entertaining and will keep your interest with the various twists and turns and special things that go on. But mostly, I think you will appreciate listening to Patel give live and uncut versions of seventeen of the great Beatles songs (maybe your favorites and maybe not) as well as basking in a nice warm-hearted and real love story. We should all be so lucky to get Boyled in love every once in a while.
I am definitely going to see that movie. A short aside. Two things I have heard about the Beatles. Recently I heard there is an argument about were they were really a rock band? I had to take a pause to consider that. No way were they not rock and roll but so innovative that much of what they did was ahead of the curve and perhaps confuses how to define them. The second thing I learned about the Beatles was what I heard many years ago on a rerun of a BBC interview with them. They were asked what group did they consider their biggest competitor. I was caught totally off guard when they said The Beach Boys! They said they would get the new releases of the BB’s as soon as possible and go to the studio (l believe) and listen to it. They were awed by many of the new things Brian Wilson was doing musically. They would wonder how they were going to do things to outdo him. Just as I heard an Eric Clapton interview when he told a story about he and Jeff Beck talking after happening to see the same Jimi Hendrix concert for their first time. They were not friends at that time but as they left they both (two of the best guitarists in the world) were wondering what in heck were they going to do to step up their own games to compete? At their levels I had previously never considered they worried about other artists out there.
I heard it explained the Beatles were a studio band versus a performance band. That was due to an inability to deal with the screaming girls. That probably made them less seem like a Rock & Roll group and less like the Stones.
True. It might be why they stopped touring so early. Pete Townshend, of The Who is almost deaf and has said he would have protected his hearing had he but known.