Disappointing for a massive Beatles fan

Rating: 5/10 (12 November 2019)

I suppose it helps if you are a Beatles fan to appreciate this film, and I am a big Beatles fan. When I was about 5 years old I saw an advert in my Dad's The Daily Mirror for a set of mail order albums by The Beatles and I decided I wanted them. I have no idea why, I had never heard a single Beatles track in my life. I just liked the look and the sound of this 8 album set. None of the 8 were The Beatles actual albums, but more an anthology story of 16 best tracks on each album, and I still have them to this day, approximately forty years later. So I convinced my mum that this was going to be my birthday present and she must have said are you sure? about a hundred times. Yes I was sure, this is what I want.
I remember when they arrived sitting up in my sisters bedroom as she was the only one of us kids who had a record player and from the moment I heard the first track on the first album, Love Me Do I was hooked. A massive Beatles fan I became and I love their music as much today as I did when I was 5 years old.
As I said, unfortunately, being a Beatles fan doesn't really help this film any. I was quite excited about watching Yesterday, 1 - massive Beatles fan, 2 - quite liked the weird premise of the film and everybody knows I like a weird concept and 3 - Danny Boyle directed it and who doesn't like Danny Boyle? Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, The Beach, Slumdog Millionaire, 28 Days Later and the guy who directed live action for the olympics. In my opinion, he's only made one bad film and that was A Life Less Ordinary with Ewen and Cameron. I thought the idea of waking up one minute and nobody remembering The Beatles except you was a nutty idea with so many possibilities. Dissappointingly I think this is Danny's weakest film to date. There is nobody in the cast who smashes a performance that can rescue the film and the script is pretty dire as well. I never knew that Danny Boyle could or would make cheesy films but he has managed to do just that here. I think the fact that Richard Curtis had a hand in this film has injected the typical Hugh Grant type film into the proceedings. Ed Sheehan is in it as himself and the lines that he delivers that are supposed to be funny just aren't. It's obvious from the start that the love interest will work. At one point you think things are going to Strat to get interesting at a press conference when someone waves a yellow submarine in the air and shouts out who was your favourite, John, Paul, George or Ringo but even that part of the storyline seems to get bottled which would have been fun.
Robert Carlyle pops up to make a cameo as John Lennon but he can't master the Scouse accent and simply sounds the Scotsman that he is. The best thing about the movie os obviously the Beatles music. I wanted to love this film but sadly I didn't. What was good is that as soon as it finished I dug out my copy of 1+ on Blu-ray and watched the real Fab Four doing what they do best, mop tops and all. A disappointing 5/10.