Yesterday. (12A.)
Directed by Danny Boyle.
Starring Himesh Patel, Lily James, Joel Fry, Kate McKinnon, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Meera Syal and Ed Sheeran. 116 mins.
The latest romantic comedy from a script by Richard FourWeddingsNottingHillLoveActually Curtis is predominantly deficient in the areas of the rom and the com but does have a cracking Twilight Zone premise: a failing musician who wakes up in a world where everybody has forgotten The Beatles and he's the only one who remembers their songs and the majority of their lyrics. (The premise may be that of Jack Barth, who has a story credit.) This is the equivalent of owning Sid James's Budgie in Carry On At Your Convenience that predicts the racing results. Jack Malik (Patel) though, being the lead in a Curtis romcom, just ums and ahs, ohs and ers about it rather than using it to get rich and laid, as he would if he wasn't in a Richard Curtis film.
The film has some good lines such as the suggestion the song be renamed Hey Dude and the response to hearing Yesterday for the first time, “It's good, but it's not Coldplay.” One of the film's most intriguing elements is the character of Ed Sheerin, a global music star who, as played by a bit part performer from Game Of Thrones, doesn't have any of the attributes of a global music star. His anti-charisma and this gimmicky casting against type is part of a strong subtext castigating the parlous state of modern music.
The songs are what keep the film going. You don't hear the original versions, but even mediocre cover versions have the magic. (That said, while accepting that there are sound narrative reasons for the choice, you have to wonder at a film about Beatles music that includes Ob La Di, Ob La Da and All You Need Is Love, but not Paperback Writer, I Am The Walrus and Happiness Is A Warm Gun.)
There is a lot to explore here but but the film seems maddeningly incurious about its own premise. The mechanics of what happens – Malik is involved in a traffic accident during 12 seconds when the world's electricity blacks out – is never explained, but presumably, we're in some parallel universe. Yet surely if The Beatles had never happened the world would be a lot different to the way it is now, it wouldn't be much the same world with just a bunch of songs missing.
Even Boyle can't rev it into life and the whole enterprise seems oddly subdued. There's a moment when Malik and his roadie (Fry) jump into a taxi to escape from screaming fans and you expect a cheeky Hard Day's Night pastiche but it doesn't go anywhere with that. Instead, the film just repeats all the Richard Curtis moves. There's the group of wacky supportive friends; the moment when the hero runs to the station to declare his love; Fry is Rhy Ifans figure from Notting Hill; Lily James is made to be Keira Knightley. Towards the end, it even does an inversion of the moment in the Doctor Who episode Curtis wrote when Van Gogh gets to see how acclaimed he is today, but even that isn't as tear-jerking as it should be. Is it wrong to wish to live in a universe where somebody else wrote Yesterday?
Directed by Danny Boyle.
Starring Himesh Patel, Lily James, Joel Fry, Kate McKinnon, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Meera Syal and Ed Sheeran. 116 mins.
The latest romantic comedy from a script by Richard FourWeddingsNottingHillLoveActually Curtis is predominantly deficient in the areas of the rom and the com but does have a cracking Twilight Zone premise: a failing musician who wakes up in a world where everybody has forgotten The Beatles and he's the only one who remembers their songs and the majority of their lyrics. (The premise may be that of Jack Barth, who has a story credit.) This is the equivalent of owning Sid James's Budgie in Carry On At Your Convenience that predicts the racing results. Jack Malik (Patel) though, being the lead in a Curtis romcom, just ums and ahs, ohs and ers about it rather than using it to get rich and laid, as he would if he wasn't in a Richard Curtis film.
The film has some good lines such as the suggestion the song be renamed Hey Dude and the response to hearing Yesterday for the first time, “It's good, but it's not Coldplay.” One of the film's most intriguing elements is the character of Ed Sheerin, a global music star who, as played by a bit part performer from Game Of Thrones, doesn't have any of the attributes of a global music star. His anti-charisma and this gimmicky casting against type is part of a strong subtext castigating the parlous state of modern music.
The songs are what keep the film going. You don't hear the original versions, but even mediocre cover versions have the magic. (That said, while accepting that there are sound narrative reasons for the choice, you have to wonder at a film about Beatles music that includes Ob La Di, Ob La Da and All You Need Is Love, but not Paperback Writer, I Am The Walrus and Happiness Is A Warm Gun.)
There is a lot to explore here but but the film seems maddeningly incurious about its own premise. The mechanics of what happens – Malik is involved in a traffic accident during 12 seconds when the world's electricity blacks out – is never explained, but presumably, we're in some parallel universe. Yet surely if The Beatles had never happened the world would be a lot different to the way it is now, it wouldn't be much the same world with just a bunch of songs missing.
Even Boyle can't rev it into life and the whole enterprise seems oddly subdued. There's a moment when Malik and his roadie (Fry) jump into a taxi to escape from screaming fans and you expect a cheeky Hard Day's Night pastiche but it doesn't go anywhere with that. Instead, the film just repeats all the Richard Curtis moves. There's the group of wacky supportive friends; the moment when the hero runs to the station to declare his love; Fry is Rhy Ifans figure from Notting Hill; Lily James is made to be Keira Knightley. Towards the end, it even does an inversion of the moment in the Doctor Who episode Curtis wrote when Van Gogh gets to see how acclaimed he is today, but even that isn't as tear-jerking as it should be. Is it wrong to wish to live in a universe where somebody else wrote Yesterday?
