Review | Yesterday film review: a world without The Beatles – Ed Sheeran plays himself in Danny Boyle’s comedy
- Boyle collaborates with Richard Curtis in this tale of a man who becomes the only person to have heard of The Beatles
- Himesh Patel plays Jack, who becomes world famous singing Beatles songs after their existence is erased in a mysterious global blackout
3.5/5 stars
With his Apple founder biopic Steve Jobs , his Trainspotting sequel T2 and his Getty family TV drama Trust, director Danny Boyle has been delving into dark territory of late. So it’s heartening to see him back to something lighter.
Yesterday sees him collaborate for the first time with Richard Curtis, the master of the modern British romantic comedy with films like Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral. The story is high-concept: what would the world be like without The Beatles? Like Curtis’ last film as director, About Time, he uses a hokey bit of fantasy to kick-start events.
A global electrical power outage, lasting a matter of seconds, stealthily rewires the world. While the majority is none the wiser, for Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), a struggling singer-songwriter, it changes everything. In those moments, knocked off his bike, he blacks out.
When he wakes up, he’s missing his two front teeth and, he soon discovers, is the only one who has heard of The Beatles. A swift Google check reveals … well, some beetles, as it becomes clear the Fab Four and their music have been entirely erased from the collective consciousness. With one of the world’s finest musical back catalogues at his fingertips, the temptation is all too much for Jack.