Yesterday

So it’s not just the Beatles that have been forgotten in this alternative universe. Coca Cola, Oasis, cigarettes, Harry Potter and Jane Austen have been too. John Lennon casually refers to “prejudice and pride” as if he’d never heard the famous title. 

Ah, yes, the evanescence of human achievement, where even man’s greatest accomplishments can disappear without a trace. Call this the musical version of Shelley’s “Ozymandias.” Of course, with worldly glory so insubstantial and fleeting all that matters is true love. All you need is love, as heroes Jack and Ellie finally discover. Could be a song there.

A familiar theme does not a failure make. Indeed Danny Boyle’s new film is his most satisfying since Trainspotting (1996!), albeit in a tad different key. The idea that the Beatles could disappear from all but three peoples’ memory is intriguing. It reminds us how tentative our apprehension of any reality really is. 

The film is also a well-earned homage to that quartet. As another “memory” puts it: The world would be a far poorer place without the Beatles music so any revival, under whatever terms, is a blessing. That value goes for art in general — the imaginative fabrications that enrich us, our world, out lives. Everything is enhanced by our imagination, the ability to apprehend what never existed — or what did but has been lost. 
     That also reflects on the love story. Jack as kept Ellie in the wrong column all these years because he has failed to imagine her as a lover, them as a couple. His ethnic distinction makes that instinct of self-denial all the more understandable. The happy ending gives him all his beloved — the woman he married and the music he has managed to selflessly donate to the world, no financial strings attached. The school gym performance is more satisfying than Wembley.