‘Yesterday’ is a marmite film: you either love it or you hate it depending on what you look for when you visit your local multiplex. Those who love ‘Yesterday’ will toe-tap along to The Beatles’ greatest hits (of which there are plenty). Those who hate it will scoff at the corny romanticism (again, of which there is plenty) and wish they had purchased a ticket for ‘Annabelle Comes Home’ instead. My own realist view of the world aside, I’m siding with the fans on this occasion. ‘Yesterday’ is an endearingly sweet and quirky watch that will stand comfortably next to ‘Love, Actually’ and ‘Notting Hill’ on my DVD shelf when it’s available for home viewing. During an unexplained global blackout, struggling singer-songwriter Jack Malik (Himesh Patel of EastEnders fame) is hit by a bus. After he comes round he soon realises that The Beatles never existed in a bizarre twist of reality. Jack seizes the opportunity to kickstart his failing career by passing The Beatles’ music off as his own with a little help from his best friend and manager Ellie (‘Mamma Mia 2’ star Lily James). Before long Jack becomes an overnight success and his dreams become a reality, but at what cost? And will his plagiarism be found out?
With Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle behind the lens, ‘Yesterday’ carries the distinctly British theme of a relatable underdog who’s essentially a nobody wanting to be a somebody. Himesh Patel exudes Hugh Grant-esque bumbling ordinariness with appealingly awkward charm. Couple that with Richard Curtis’s writer pen, where the sweetness and complete lack of realism drive the narrative, and you have a feel-good crowd-pleaser of a film. There is a lot of emphasis on the overfamiliar trope that fame and fortune are not the means to happiness and fulfilment. ‘Yesterday’ has its flaws, (the storyline itself is more improbable than me receiving my overdue Hogwarts letter that got lost in the mail), but interestingly enough, they are what make it such an adorable, carefree pleasure on a summer’s evening at the movies.
Celebrity cameos are typically a recipe for disaster of embarrassing proportions, however, Ed Sheeran just about gets away with playing an exaggerated version of himself. His unwelcome high-jacking of ‘Hey Jude’ (imaginatively renamed to ‘Hey Dude’) is one of the film’s funniest moments in Jack’s palpable discomfort. Unsurprisingly, beneath Jack and Ellie’s friendship lurks romantic tension. Ellie has waited since primary school for Jack to tell her he reciprocates her feelings, so much so when the opportunity arises she may as well be stood in a Notting Hill bookshop delivering Julia Roberts’s ‘I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy’ speech. This version modestly takes place in a grab and go pasty shop in Lime Street station. Like the endearingly gauche William Thacker, Jack blows it and must find a way to win his girl back before it’s too late. ‘Yesterday’ may be safe and predictable, but fans of The Beatles need not worry at the respectful use of their iconic music.
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