Yesterday ★★★★
EVERYONE loves The Beatles, right?
So it follows that a romantic comedy featuring their music should mean box-office success.
It’s not assured – I mean not everyone loves rom-coms – but Yesterday has many great things in its favour.
Firstly, behind the camera is Danny Boyle, one of Britain’s most talented and versatile directors who has previously tackled every genre with aplomb through films like Trainspotting, Sunshine, Steve Jobs, 28 Days Later and The Beach.
Secondly, it’s written by Richard Curtis whose slew of credits include War Horse, Bridget Jones, Love Actually, Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral. Curtis is a specialist in British rom-coms.
Thirdly, it features a series of wonderfully engaging and scene-stealing performances from Himesh Patel, in his first feature film, Lily James, Joel Fry, Kate McKinnon, Sanjeev Baskar and, yes, even Ed Sheeran.
And finally, of course, it features the Fab Four’s tunes played with love and gusto by Patel himself.
He plays amateur musician Jack Malik who quit a future career as a teacher to focus on his musical dream.
A recent procession of gigs where he has been all but ignored has Jack starting to doubt he will ever make it, despite the urging and unwavering support of his unpaid manager and good friend Ellie (James).
Of course it’s obvious to us that Ellie isn’t just spending much of her spare time on Jack’s stuttering career out of pure friendship. she loves the guy but he has no idea.
One night there is some kind of unexplained, world-wide power outage during which Jack is injured in a road accident.
He wakes up to eventually discover while everything might seem the same, a few historical facts no longer exist, including The Beatles and their music.
After some initial moral reflection, Jack proceeds to lock himself away trying to remember the lyrics to every song and then starts to pass them off as his own.
It doesn’t take long before the power of the music comes to the attention of others, including a small-time record producer and eventually Ed Sheeran playing himself.
As well as the moral dilemma of stealing somebody else’s music and concern that he will be uncovered as a fraud, Jack has to come to terms with whether he wants fame and fortune or a potential life with Ellie.
Aside from the clever high-concept you might be thinking the rest of the story sounds pretty predictable rom-com stuff.
But the Boyle and Curtis combination know how to deliver a story that builds momentum and adds layers to create something much more satisfying and a little thought-provoking.
The cast is uniformly great with Patel a revelation, with James creating a natural relationship that never seems forced.
Fry as their friend Rocky, Baskar as Jack’s Dad and McKinnon as his agent all have some great scenes and Sheeran is surprisingly good in the scenes where he plays an artist who realises he has heard someone better.
What would people think of The Beatles songs now if they had never been heard before?
As performed by Patel in this wonderfully engaging film, I think they would love them.