Jack Malik is a struggling singer/songwriter. On his way back home from a gig he finds himself in an accident as the result of a worldwide power outage. Whilst recuperating he finds that he is now in a world where, shock horror, The Beatles and their music are completely unknown with their songs not being written or recorded. He fraudulently decides to address this by performing the songs in his own set and quickly becomes famous because of this.
This film is vile. Firstly it presumes that The Beatles’ music is so fantastic that it would become huge in any era and under any auspices. Theres only a handful of the band’s entire oeuvre that I can tolerate at best and so this film’s assertion is completely, pun not intended, tone deaf to me.
Secondly, Ed Sheeran stars as himself. In a film that centres around bland music, it’s fitting that he has a prominent place within proceedings. But whoever thought that Sheeran has a face for the celluloid screen? He looks like a ginger version of Pepe The Frog.
Thirdly, this film is so twee that it seems to have been made to be shown on BBC1 (preferably on a Sunday afternoon) for many decades to come. It’s full of irritating middle class people being all cutesy, annotingly awkward and vomit inducing to boot. It’s no surprise that Richard Curtis wrote this monstrosity.
If I had to rewrite this film it would go like this- Jack finds that whilst The Beatles are nowhere to be heard (and suffered) in the post outage world, there’s a band called Throbbing Gristle who are as famous as The Fab Four were. Songs such as United, Zyklon B Zombie and Six Six Sixties are known by everybody and appropriately held dear in the hearts of the populace. Jack peddles his Beatles covers but he, like their songs, remains mired in obscurity. The End.
Yesterday gets no stars.
meathookcinema.com 