Yesterday (2019)

Rating: 8/10 (6 July 2019)

And the award for the most brilliant idea for a film goes to: Yesterday. I went wild when I first heard about this film. Danny Boyle directing a movie about a brown guy who plays Beatles songs, in a world that has forgotten about the Beatles existence. Extraordinarily fun premise. I adore The Beatles, if it were lucrative to be a Beatles historian, that would be my dream job. I had such a blast with this film. It pays tribute to the greatest and most influential band ever and also serves up a charming love story.
The film is about a down out of luck musician who gets hit by a bus during a weird global occurrence where the world has a blackout. He soon finds out that the world inexplicably does not know of The Beatles, its members, or any of their music. Using this to his advantage, the protagonist named Jack Malik, uses the Beatles works as his own and eventually gains worldwide recognition as a renown artist. He must balance his new found superstardom and the feelings he has for his friend and former manager.
This is the film debut of Himesh Patel who is so good in this film. You get behind the characters plight and his story. He is a talented musician no doubt as his renditions of Beatles classics in the film are quite good. Richard Curtis's script and idea is quite great and innovative, despite it not being perfect. It doesn't always score but for the most part it does a great blend of music, drama, romance, and comedy. I like how clever it allows itself to be. If you're a fan of The Beatles like me and can catch every reference to the band and their songs its even better.
I think I'd be clinically depressed if I somehow forgot about the wonderful work of The Beatles and also knew I could never hear a song about them again. Their music is so important to me and I love that a film came out about a "What if" scenario for if everyone forgot The Beatles. At its core, its got a really cute and charming love story as well. I'm very much pleased with this film. I'm really down for seeing more of Himesh Patel and the ever expanding filmography of Danny Boyle.
8/10