I don’t go to see movies very often because of the time it takes and expense just never seems worth it to me, but my kid is a huge Beatles fan so I went to the movie Yesterday.
There is some mild swearing and talk of sex and a “fade to black” moment where it’s implied in the film, but honestly not all that bad compared to what most movies do these days. So on that level, it’s a fairly harmless film, though I can’t recommend for children under 12 completely just because of those facts.
The premise is simple: everyone forgets the Beatles. Only one person remembers them, and so he saves his songwriting career by resurrecting their songs.
It’s a cute premise and I’m sure something a lot of people fantasize about (what if I was the beatles??!) but the problem with me was as it developed I saw how much of a gamma male fantasy this story was.
The gamma male is typically spotted by:
- Intelligent
- Sexual reject
- Unsuccessful
- Thinks of himself as a “secret king” – i.e. IF ONLY THEY WOULD DISCOVER ME
- And are dishonest to themselves and others for appearances sake
The whole movie was not just gamma male, but gamma fretting, as this character as he gets bigger worries more and more about the internal lie eating him up, that he’s a fraud, until the pressure becomes too much. I see this a lot with gamma males who do make it big in the arts, as they often get too much fame/money and are unable to perform on their contracts because they know they’re not the real deal.
It was interesting to see the admission of that perspective, of which I presume the writer has gamma tendencies, but unfortunately the lesson wasn’t in the honesty or dishonesty part – it was more a relationship romance movie with the plot of musical fame gained without merit as a vehicle more than an important part of the plot itself.
The relationship is where it really is just a gamma fantasy that would never come true. The female, Ellie, is utterly in love with the character, sees his TRUE talent from what it is, which is even secreter than his secret king fantasy of knowing the Beatles songs when no one else does. He’s a great musician and no one else knows it except her. And she is head over heels for him the whole time despite his – not being very attractive, being awful to her, never gratifying her, never being attentive of her.
She makes all the moves on him the entire movie, and he just freezes absorbed in himself, and she stick with him through the whole thing. It’s absurd and it’s definitely not how attractive women react to gamma male behavior—they are quite repulsed by it.
The film really has an unsatisfying ending to it, and probably should have been 20 minutes shorter as the premise wore thin pretty quickly, and the characters were not interesting enough to hold, and nor was the actor. Of course… it ends with him discovering no one’s read Harry Potter. Something else to make my eyes roll.
If you’ve read Harry Potter, you should READ ANOTHER BOOK. Start with For Steam And Country. Last day it’s free is today:
My 13 year old saw this movie but I did not. I forwarded her your post to get her take on your take. I feel like movies like this are like a lukewarm water lapping over our kids’ feet. They don’t even feel like they’re getting wet, even though the “gamma is great” messages are washing over them.
Thanks for posting your perspective.