Yesterday vs Groundhog Day

[js_thrill]

One of the best features of the film Groundhog Day is that it doesn’t explain why Phil relives the same day over and over. No one explains to Phil/the audience “oh you did this wrong, and so you are in this purgatory until you become a better person, and this was done to you by fate/Zeus/Mr. Mxyzptlyk/whatever”. The outlines of the basic morality play are pretty clear without explanation and any exposition would ruin it. It makes sense that Phil spends time asking what this happening to him (beyond the literal description “he is reliving the same day”), but it’s good that the movie doesn’t answer.

The movie Yesterday does the same thing. One character has a bicycle accident at the same time as a nationwide blackout (iirc), and when he wakes up, he is in a world where no one else remembers the Beatles.  And as a movie it doesn’t work. I think the issue here is partially that some things are under-explained (why does coca-cola also stop existing if the Beatles hadn’t existed, but Coldplay does still exist exactly as before?) but really I think it the larger issue is that you can only set aside the how questions if you are doing a good job of delivering on the why questions.

In Groundhog Day you don’t need answers to how questions because the obvious focus is on why. Why is this happening to Phil? He’s a jerk, but he doesn’t have to be. If he gets enough chances, and learns from his mistakes he can become a better person, he can connect with other people etc. 

In Yesterday, what’s the point of this world where (mostly) only one person knows about the Beatles? The story isn’t about tempting him with an easy path to success; or else is would follow the beats of Faust. It’s not about whether the Beatles were right time-right place, or else you wouldn’t have everyone floored by how good the music was when he “composes” it. It’s not about integrity of the artist because he never tries to put his own music in among the Beatles stuff. The why seems to be “wouldn’t it be worse if this music weren’t around, we’d be pretty glad to have someone give it back to us” but…okay? Just make a fawning Beatles documentary then?

If you aren’t going to trace out how things might actually differ with no Beatles, then my pitch for a moderately interesting thing to do with the premise would be for the main character to be scrupulously honest, and everyone considers him to be doing a performance art bit? (Some of this is assuming you don’t get to use the music for a movie that posits people wouldn’t love it so much if it were released today). So the albums all still get released  and everyone thinks he’s a weird conceptual artist who won’t drop the act. By sticking to the truth he makes his life harder, gets isolated from his friends and family, and he could start lying at any time to make things easier on himself (or just stop sharing the music).  So the why question here would be about truth/honesty even when it isn’t going to work, alongside the need to share art.