Yesterday
4 stars
Director: Danny Boyle
Starring: Himesh Patel, Lily James, Kate McKinnon, Ed Sheeran
Duration: 112 mins
Class: 12A
KRS Releasing Ltd

Struggling singer-songwriter Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is despondently cycling home after yet another uninspiring festival performance (where he played to an audience of half-a-dozen kids) when in the middle of a freak worldwide power cut, he gets hit by a bus.

Luckily – save for a few broken teeth – Jack is fine, but when he gets home from hospital, he realises that he is living in a world where The Beatles never existed.

Coming to terms with this inexplicable parallel existence of his, he has a brainwave – and rewrites the Fab Four’s hits from memory and claims them as his own. This musical genius is immediately recognised and it is not long before Jack launches the musical career of his dreams; leaving his sleepy seaside hometown behind.

It’s certainly an odd premise but coming as it is from the pen of British romcom royalty – Richard Curtis (he of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually and Notting Hill to name but three) – from an idea by Jack Barth, it works. It’s  a light-hearted and oftentimes hilarious story about the pursuit of fame, the trappings that come with it and the realisation that all you need, apart from love, is really what you already have. 

From the moment Jack tentatively strums his guitar and sings Yesterday to his awestruck friends, you know you are onto a winner. If the plot line at the base of the story sails towards a predictable conclusion it matters little, for the journey features an ensemble of winsome characters set to a soundtrack that is essentially a compilation of the best of The Beatles songs.

There are moments when it is really, really funny. A running gag has Jack trying to remember the lyrics to Eleanor Rigby (Google can’t help, of course) while a marketing meeting involving dozens of eager execs goes horribly wrong when Jack’s ‘ideas’ for album names and cover designs are shot down one by one (The White Album will have diversity issues; that Abbey Road featuring a picture of a road is deemed ‘boring’, while the mere mention of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band has everyone in peals of laughter). Finally, and equally importantly, relative newcomer Patel (EastEnders fans will recognise him) executes every song he tackles perfectly, with infectious enthusiasm and passion. He effortlessly carries the film with his easy charm and hits both the heartfelt and the humorous notes with consummate ease.

Genius will always be recognised no matter what

Although she is a much bigger star than Patel, Lily James takes a backseat as his old schoolfriend, biggest fan and sort-of manager Ellie, unselfishly letting Jack get on with his fame and fortune, despite being (spoiler alert) madly in love with him.

American comedian Kate McKinnon has a blast as Debra, Jack’s overbearing ambitious American agent, hilariously sending up the stereotype. Pop sensation Ed Sheeran gamely plays a version of himself, as Jack’s mentor, offering him his first major gig and his first step to stardom…  and in one particularly precious moment, he desolately pronounces himself the ‘Salieri to Jack’s Mozart’.

Curtis’s screenplay may be chock-full of his trademark motifs – the hapless, puppyish, charming protagonist, the obstacles placed in his way both personally and professionally, and his community of kooky friends and family egging him along, all wrapped up in a swirl of warmth and fuzziness.

You will forgive the glossing over of the bizarre incident in the lead-up to Jack’s accident, not to mention the complete preposterousness of it all, given the underlying feel-good factor.

And yet, for all its simplicity Yesterday is more than just a hugely enjoyable sort-of-rom-com based on John, Paul, George and Ringo’s music. It powerfully and nostalgically makes the point that genius will always be recognised no matter what, and tacitly acknowledges that the world of music as we know it today would be nothing had it not been for them.

That acknowledgment is made in a scene towards the denouement which could have been very clumsily executed, yet in Patel’s hands, and the steady direction of Danny Boyle, it gives the whole enterprise a bitter-sweet ending which will stick with you long after the credits roll… as you are humming Beatles’ songs, of course…

Also showing

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