A few weeks ago, my husband and I saw a movie called Yesterday. It’s about Jack, a struggling musician who’s hit by a bus during a worldwide power outage. When he wakes up, the world is going on like normal, but he quickly realizes things aren’t quite the same as they were before. Most importantly, he discovers that he’s the only person who remembers the existence of The Beatles. Long story short, he becomes wildly successful by singing Beatles songs as if he wrote them.
One part of the film was particularly moving to me, though it wasn’t the main point of the movie or even one of several main points. Nevertheless, I found myself sobbing just a little bit anyway. The scene showed Jack giving his biggest concert yet at a venue in his hometown that had once cancelled a small gig he had pre-Beatles. It was a lovely full-circle moment. Everyone who had rolled their eyes at Jack’s dreams all those years he had struggled to make a name for himself as a musician was there.
But more importantly (to me, at least), Jack’s friends were there. Those friends, who had supported him all along, showing up to every sparsely attended performance he booked, cheering wholeheartedly for every set, requesting his signature song “one more time,” were standing front and center at that huge concert. They stood in the front row, yelling and waving signs asking him to play that song, the one he’d written before the world forgot the Beatles, before he’d experienced an ounce of success. Seeing those friends love and support Jack so well and so consistently moved me in a way I wasn’t expecting.
