Nothing you haven't seen before. Here's why...

Rating: 5/10 (1 December 2019)

It's a Richard Curtis script, so cue:

Awkward pauses between lovers.
Sudden interruptions at moments of romantic tension.
Gauche friends who don't fit in to society but have hearts of gold.
Inexplicably asexual/ non-libidinous people who suddenly discover their romantic/sexual sides.
A dash through traffic to stop a lover departing.
The lead actress confessing she's been waiting to be loved.
Emotion poured on in gargantuan dollops.

The film's premise (someone passing off others' work as their own) has been done many times, so that's not new. The film also rests wholly on the questionable (and shaky) assumption that the Beatles's songs alone would guarantee world fame for a solo performer with limited on-stage presence in 2019, rather than four cheeky chappies who exemplified the emerging teen freedoms of the 1960s and then defined the musical zeitgeist of the generation with a synergistic group personality that coalesced into a thing called 'The Beatles'. As such, it separates content from performer, music from star image/personality, when in fact the two are inextricably entwined. To suggest otherwise is to say that in public consciousness Mozart's music lives a life wholly separate from the legend (and myth) that is the tragedy of Mozart, or that E=MC2 exists totally apart from the legend (and myth) that is the 'genius' of Einstein. This is a major plot flaw.
Curtis' scripts are increasingly predictable so you can easily fast forward in chunks and not miss the story-line. You know there will be a moral dilemma which love will finally resolve.
Strong acting from Himesh Patel and Lily James - by-the-numbers acting from everyone else playing two-dimensional characters whose job is to push the plot along.
An OK movie if you've nothing else to do for a couple of hours. Settle down with some popcorn, but don't expect to carry memories of the movie for years or quote parts of it by the water cooler.
Great possibilities which ended up in a vaguely disappointing result.