Film Review: ‘Yesterday’ is a Can’t-Miss Premise That Still Misses

Submitted by PatrickMcD on June 28, 2019 - 9:12am

CHICAGO – As a Beatles fanatic who has a band because of their existence, the premise of “Yesterday” was can’t miss. A man wakes up after an accident to discover he’s the only person to know that The Beatles existed? Sign me up and buy me popcorn. It’s unfortunate that the story went in a direction that did miss.

Rating: 3.0/5.0

There is joy in the discovery … the early days of Jack, the musician who is awoken to his only-man-on-earth status, is goofy fun. His early renderings of the songs, and their bare bones recordings, have a special quality that harken back to their origins. However, story creator/screenwriter Richard Curtis (“Love Actually”) couldn’t help but wrap a rather lame love story around it, and having Ed Sheeran bring the proceedings to a halt every time he appeared on screen was painful. And while Himesh Patel gave it the old college try, he just wasn’t right for the serendipity that the role required. I walked in thinking A plus, but reluctantly have to write B minus on this report card.

Jack (Himesh Patel) is a struggling musician getting nowhere, man. His manager and potential crush, Ellie (Lily James), believes in him and wants him to continue. While riding his bike home one night, Jack gets swallowed up by a worldwide electrical black out and wrecks himself into a coma. When he comes out of it, he is the only man on earth who knows The Beatles existed.

After embarking on some soul searching, he decides to move forward to record the songs. The early raw recordings cause a sensation, which gets him a new manager (Kate McKinnon), a meeting with Ed Sheeran (himself) and a new pressure with fame, knowing he is a fraud. Can he make some hard decisions, and realize that the love of his life may be his old manager? It’s a long and winding road.

“Yesterday” opens everywhere on June 28th. Featuring the voices of Danny Boyle, Himesh Patel, Lily James, Kate McKinnon, James Corden and Ed Sheeran. Screenplay by Richard Curtis, from a story by Curtis and Jack Barth. Directed by Danny Boyle. Rated “PG-13”