Director
Danny Boyle
(SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE)

Starring
Himesh Patel, Lily James, Ed Sheeran and Kate McKinnon

When Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is involved in a bicycle accident caused by a global power outage, he wakes to a different world to the one he knew before.  In this world, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ might better be known as your local vegan café, rather than a classic song by the ‘fab four’. For some (never explained) reason, this power outage has erased most of the worlds’ knowledge of The Beatles, along with numerous other cultural phenomena. Fortunately, Jack is one man who does remember them, and he also happens to be a struggling musician….you can see where this is going can’t you? What follows is Jack’s journey of passing Lennon and McCartney classics off as his own, all while navigating his feelings for best friend and former manager, Ellie (Lily James).

With a dream team of Danny Boyle (Director) and Richard Curtis (Screenplay/Story) it’s hard not to go into Yesterday with big expectations. Curtis in-particular has such an innate ability to write these perfectly awkward, yet entirely charming characters; think Hugh Grant in Notting Hill, Colin Firth in Love Actually or even Domhnall Gleeson in About Time. In Yesterday the formula remains much the same, however it appears this time that the magic might be missing. It’s frustrating to concede that Patel is the main issue here. He is certainly a talented actor that possesses a great sense of comedy; one only needs to watch a couple of episodes of Damned to realise that, and I love the fact that here we have an ethnically diverse romantic lead, particularly when that diversity isn’t a plot point for the film. But where the above-mentioned actors have been able to perfectly blend the awkward with the charm, it would seem that Patel is only capable of the awkward. The chemistry is certainly lacking between he and James and none of that should be attributed to the starlet. It shouldn’t be hard for any actor to convince us that he’s in love with Lily James, but Patel made it look like it was more of an annoyance than anything else.

Even when refocusing on the story of Jack’s music career, it all felt a little rushed, trying to get from one hit to another without letting the audience really revel in the brilliance of the music. Add to that a myriad of frustrating plot holes and the over reliance of the same joke to get a laugh, it’s all a little less magical than the synopsis lead you to hope for. It’s not even the foray into ‘otherworldly’ that lets the film down; Curtis was able to brilliantly navigate us through the wonders of time travel in About Time, which had its own fair share of plot holes, but the charisma of the cast allowed you to forgive its foibles. Aside from the stoner roadie (played to perfection by Joel Fry) who was reminiscent of Rhys Ifans’ character in Notting Hill, there weren’t any characters that were consistently able to provide the comic relief that was expected from the film. Not even Ed Sheeran and Kate McKinnon were able to add substantial colour in an often beige affair.

I can’t help but check my bias at this point of the review. A lot of my frustration and disappointment was based around the expectation of greatness from one of my favourite film writers. When I peel back the layers of apathy, Yesterday isn’t actually a bad film in the grand scheme of things, it’s simply not as enchanting as I hoped it would be. Is it a good film to watch to kill a couple of hours? Definitely. Is it in the realm of a Love Actually whereby it commands a minimum of annual viewing? Definitely not. My recommendation for this film: Forget who wrote the screenplay, and go in with zero expectations, then maybe, just maybe, this might be a film you’ll fall in love with.

2.5 stars

Trailer
YESTERDAY

Moviedoc thanks Universal Pictures for the invite to the screening of this film.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter