While My Guitar Gently Sleeps

Rating: 4/10 (27 October 2019)

Listen, I'm a huge Beatles fan and have been since I was a boy, so I really wanted to love this film. That said, I have found Richard Curtis's film screenplays in the past to be too sentimental and slight and I'm afraid this homage to the music of the Beatles found me in familiar territory again, even if it was directed by Danny Boyle.
The basic idea of struggling musician Himesh Patel wakening up after an accident to find he's (almost) the only person who knows the songs of the Fab Four makes for an interesting concept and Curtis gets some good little jokes in referencing some of the group's famous song titles. However when he brings in Ed Sheeran, about whose music I know practically nothing, for one of the biggest cameo roles you'll probably ever see a real life celebrity make in pictures, then gets Patel involved with a cliched portrayal of a high-powered American female manager and worst of all, tries to weave a love story between Patel and long-time roadie / agent Lily James, it starts to flounder and go nowhere, pretty slowly.
I also didn't get the reason for the other random examples of world history and culture (Coca Cola, Harry Potter) dropping out of the timeline although I did like that in this alternative universe, John Lennon got to live well into his old age, but why not George Harrison too, who only got to 59 himself. I was expecting more humour too, remembering that Curtis co-wrote two of the funniest ever British TV comedies, "Black Adder" and "The Vicar Of Dibley", although I appreciate those were many years ago.
Of course I enjoyed hearing the many Beatles songs which naturally proliferate the soundtrack even if I thought the material chosen was a bit Paul-heavy.
Overall though, I found it a bit overlong, lacking in punch and without a really strong narrative, all descriptions that rarely applied to the songs of the Beatles the film was trying to commemorate.