Yesterday (2019)

Rating: 4/10 (19 April 2020)

Directed by Danny Boyle. Starring Himesh Patel, Lily James, Joel Fry, Kate McKinnon, Ed Sheeran, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Meera Syal, Alexander Arnold, Harry Michell, Sarah Lancashire, Sophia di Martino. (PG-13)
Unsuccessful singer-songwriter Patel is considering hanging it up despite earnest encouragement from best friend and manager James; one collision with a bus later, and he comes to in a world that somehow does not have the music of the Beatles in it (nor Coca-Cola, cigarettes, and a few other things). Performing the Beatles tunes from memory--and claiming them for his own--suddenly he's a music star on the rise. Strange premise, pregnant with possibilities; pity that writers Richard Curtis and Jack Barth weren't all that interested in exploring them deeply, and decided instead to present a genteel rom-com fantasy with Fab Four wallpaper. Pleasant enough, but dishearteningly unambitious, with so many questions left unanswered, and so many missed opportunities for commentary, satire, speculation, profundity and/or pathos; the cop-out ending leaves a half-dozen or so plot threads dangling and brushes past a mountain of consequences. The leads are solid, with just enough dim spark between them for rooting interest in their romance; McKinnon's eccentric music manager might have been funny in a different project, but she sticks out like a sore thumb here. Robert Carlyle is almost unrecognizable doing a cameo as...a famous person, let's leave it at that.
43/100