Yesterday (Film Review)

Since this is streaming in my part of the world now, I could watch it. It's a charming bit of fluff, written by Richard Curtis, directed by Danny Boyle, starring Himesh Patel as the kind Curtis written RomCom hero who would have been played by Hugh Grant thirty years earlier, Lily James as the heroine, Eillie, Kate McKinnon having fun as an incredibly over the top evil American agent/manager) (is there any other kind in British movies?) (given the subject matter, I'm tempted to think of her as genderswapped Allen Klein and Ellie as genderswapped Brian Epstein), and most of all the Beatles' song catalogue as the sparkling star of the movie.

If, like me, you didn't watch this in the cinema a few years ago: the basic premise recognizable from the trailer and thus unspoilery is this: our hero, Jack Malik, is a former teacher with a passion for music and song writing who's spent the last years trying to make it in the musical scene while taking on humiliating warehouse jobs to make a living. Ellie is his childhood best friend (and still a teacher)/devoted agent who has been working her backside of getting Jack gigs in her non existent free time, but the breakthrough won't happen. (We get to hear two of Jack's songs early in this movie, and they're nice but not spectacular.) Cue miracle event (thankfully unexplained - any explanation would have felt idiotic, the the movie just breezes through without it, which imo was 100% the right decision) that leaves the Beatles (and two or three other things I won't spoil) wiped out from human history (as a cultural event, that is) and Jack as seemingly the only person who can remember them and their songs. Naturally, he gives into temptation and decides to become the Fab One.

( It gets more than the trailer spoilery from this point onwards )