A slight but ingenious comedy

Rating: 8/10 (14 October 2019)

Yesterday has a terrific premise: a failed musician wakes up one morning to discover that no one but him remembers The Beatles (or, for that matter, Coca-Cola). Realizing that he is sitting on a trove containing some of the greatest pop songs ever written, he passes them off as his own and heads towards stardom.
There's not a lot of story to this, but what there is flows along breezily, keeping you interested in what's coming next. It's a light, old-fashioned, feel-good fantasy comedy that is pretty much exactly what I was hoping for after seeing the trailer.
While I am able to suspend disbelief over the whole no-Beatles thing, I find the relationship between the singer and his manager less believable. For it to work out as he did he would have had to be far stupider and more awkward than he was. It's not a huge thing, but it does bug me.
(The idea that having a lot of brilliant songs is enough to make you succeed in music is also a bit doubtful, but I'll let that one slide.)
The cast is excellent. Himesh Patel has a nice voice, Lily James is charming, and Kate McKinnon brings her usual comic intensity to the role of a snarky manager.
Also, it's got a ton of really nice Beatles covers.