The Academy Awards didn’t get the Oscar nominations right Monday morning because they didn’t get Yesterday right.
The joyously creative movie Yesterday, accurately described in Forbes as the “summer’s lone sleeper hit,” received not a single Academy Award nomination. Instead, the Oscar nominations are dominated by the usual mix of the pompous, the dark and moody, the homages to Hollywood itself, and, of course, the annual over-stylized mob flick. (Okay, Little Women, which I haven’t seen yet but I’m told is wonderful, doesn’t fit any of these categories, but Hollywood likes it probably because Hollywood considers it to be slyly feminist more than because the academy actually recognizes quality.)
The professional critics, haughty as always in dismissing movies that are fun and sweet and smile-inducing, over-analyzed Yesterday. The critics would sometimes acknowledge its winsomeness but kept complaining that the film doesn’t satisfy their “inner pedant,” who wants a more serious examination of the ramifications of its “daft, ingenious premise.”
In truth, that premise, namely that some sort of weird analog of an electromagnetic pulse suddenly made almost everyone in the world forget that the Beatles (and a few other pop-culture staples) ever existed, works so well specifically because the film itself doesn’t try to over-analyze it. The characters are so likable, the pacing so perfect, and the Beatles songs so seamlessly and happily woven into the plot that the audience is happy to suspend disbelief.
But, “what if the popularity of the Beatles’ music was as much a product of a specific time and set of circumstances as the music itself?” asks A.O. Scott of the New York Times. “What if things had developed so differently in the Beatles’ absence that people would have no idea what they were missing, and, frankly, wouldn’t care?” asks Sheila O’Malley at RogerEbert.com.
Audiences know not to take things so absurdly seriously. They are perfectly happy with “daft” if it is accompanied by “ingenious.” They have no problem with a movie that wears lighthearted sincerity on its sleeve. If the Beatles could be sappy, with Let It Be and Long and Winding Road, or daftly silly with Yellow Submarine and Octopus’s Garden, why shouldn’t a movie homage to the Beatles be the same?
The self-important academy often forgets that the first and most basic job of a movie is to entertain. As it was put by one “ordinary viewer” at IMDB who gave the movie a perfect “10” rating, “If you need two hours to forget about all the bad things in this world or in your life and to just feel happy, go see this movie!”
Hollywood rarely honors “just feeling happy.” Nor does it like “messages” as simple as “if you love a girl, let her know” and “always try to tell the truth.” That’s not dark enough, not twisted enough, not complicated enough, not tortured enough, for the academy.
It should, though, be celebrated. My wife and I, despite neither of us being particularly avid Beatles fans, both decided Yesterday was our favorite movie. Not necessarily the grandest, the most meaningful, the most inspirational, but definitely our favorite — not just of 2019, but the entire decade.
When a fun, little flick unexpectedly earns $150 million at the box office, the academy should pay attention. Then again, if the fools in the (Hollywood) hills miss the boat, as they often do, well, ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, bra, la-la how the life goes on.
