Review: Yesterday

Release date: June 28, 2019
Running time: 116 minutes
Starring: Himesh Patel, Lily James, Sophia Di Martino

Yesterday is a British Comedy where musician Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) struggles with creativity and direction in his path to fame and celebrity. But despite his challenges his core fan base has always been his friends and one in particular, Ellie Appleton (Lily James) who not only has been his friend for over 20 years but his manager who truly has his best interest at heart.

As Jack struggles in his musical career, he feels the pressure of life's challenges in this path to stardom.  His dreams of fame are fading and he even begins to ignore the positives he is surrounded by. Then the unthinkable happens and Jack is involved in a bus accident on his bike as a global blackout happens for over 12 seconds. When Jack wakes, Ellie is by his side but he has woken to another timeline, a timeline where The Beatles never existed.

This movie truly is a Beatles fan movie. Tons of references and puns to the many songs they made over the years and historical landmarks that were either from album covers or used as motivation in the creation of the songs were planted throughout this movie. If you have no prior knowledge of the Beatles you may find yourself struggling to keep up with not only the jokes, but the significance of scenes. The element of Jack struggling to remember the lyrics of each song and having him mess up over and over is absolutely hilarious but if you do not know the songs then the humor can be lost a little.

However, even if you are not a Beatles fan, you can still enjoy a decent number of funny scenes and solid musical performances by the cast, with special guest Ed Sheeran himself. The cast overall give solid performances in this heartwarming story.  Particularly, Lily James reminds me a lot of Brie Larson in that she can captivate the audience with her display pure emotion.  Like Jack in the film, this movie and her excellent performance is a preview of the superstar she can become!

Yesterday is a fun movie but maybe not truly a movie for anyone who isn't a true Beatles fan to really go out their way to watch. Surely a life without The Beatles is infinitely bad but a life possibly not seeing this movie will be just fine.

Rent it.