Yesterday: All my
troubles seemed to be with the love story.
Review: I have a
confession to make. I am not what you would describe as a normal human, ie. I’m
not particularly a fan of The Beatles. I appreciate everything they have done
for music and I enjoy a few of their songs but unlike Rocketman, I don’t get a
huge rush of adrenaline when I hear the first few bars of Elena Rigby. This
then may have an influence on my enjoyment of the film but I will try to be as
fair as possible.
When I first heard
that Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis were collaborating to create this movie I
was interested to see how this potential clash of style would affect the
creativity of production. My fears were realised I am sad to inform you. What
we got was a disjointed and confused narrative with a great concept. The
concept being “what if The Beatles never existed and you were the only person
that could remember their music?” Pretty cool right? Well you are right, but
along side this nice Sci-Fi problematic universe with hundreds of intriguing
possibilities, we got this tagged on, old fashioned, Richard Curtis style,
completely unbelievable and needless Rom-com. This sidetracked you from
everything interesting about the film and the writing and directing conflict made
Hamish Patel (Jack Malik) seem like a bad actor. You really believe him going
through this experience and going to a place of near insanity but which made
the RC style love affair feel very disjointed based on little truth. Also come
on let’s be honest, who takes 20 years to realise they’re in love with Lilly
James .... and even she as his ex manager throws an ultimatum at him staking
it’s her or the music! A scene that made no sense for her characters
motivations. This is no reflection on her as an actress, I like Lilly James but
I think her character in general was miswritten and misdirected.
There were some nice
supporting cast performances from Joel Fry as Rocky who kept things
realistically amusing and also from Ed Sheeran who plays the most convincing
portrayal of himself I’ve seen any non acting celebrity do. 
So I’m happy to
conclude that the reasons I didn’t enjoy this film had nothing to do with its
Beatles soundtrack but more with fundamental flaws in making films with
engaging plots that coincide with character arcs that make sense.
Overall I would give
this film a rating of 6.8/10 with a mild recommendation as a Netflix watch when
you’ve got an evening free that doesn’t have any pressure on banking a good
movie.
I've been Christopher Whitmore, thanks for reading.
