'Yesterday' Confirms Our Suspicions: The World Is Worse Without The Beatles
Director Danny Boyle is back after an underwhelming sequel to the seminal work of his career: Trainspotting. This time, he’s paired with veteran screenwriter Richard Curtis, best known for penning classic, cutesy romantic comedies like Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Notting Hill. True to form, Curtis’s newest story is primarily a rom-com, but its fascinating premise is more akin to the fantastical what-ifs of About Time than the traditional intimacies of Love Actually. Curtis poses the pop culture-busting question: what if we never had The Beatles?
Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is a singer/songwriter in Lowestoft, a small town in Suffolk, England. Plainly put, he’s going nowhere. He and his best friend/manager, Ellie Appleton (Lily James), tour around the county playing empty bars, vacant inns, and unknown and unattended tent stages at otherwise prominent festivals. His lack of success means he’s always on the brink of quitting, but no matter how underwhelming his original “Summer Song” really is, Ellie won’t let him give up on his dreams of being a renowned musician. That probably sounds cliché, but outside of its premise, Yesterday is about as cliché as rom-coms get.
Source: Luke Hicks/filmschoolrejects.com
