Director Danny Boyle’s work as a director may be familiar to some of you from the film “Trainspotting,” but with his latest film, “Yesterday,” he tells the story of a down-on-his-luck musician (Himesh Patel) whom after a world-wide event, leaves him as the only one who remembers the music of The Beatles. Once he realizes this, he uses that knowledge to give it one more shot to make it to the top. With Ellie (Lily James) as his manager, roadie, and groupie that has always been by his side, he also wonders if she can stay all of those things.
Pop superstar Ed Sheeran plays himself, helping with the flow of the story and Kate McKinnon does her part as Debra, the Manager from Los Angeles. The writing by Richard Curtis (based off a story he co-wrote with Jack Curtis) has some good surprises and moments of Beatles trivia and was for the most part enjoyable even if a bit open-ended from the standpoint of the line of reality and fantasy being blurred within the story. The landscape moments of Cinematography in both the United Kingdom and Los Angeles have me really wanting to take a trip and go see the sights for myself with great work in places like Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, and Abby Road . . .I need to start saving up.
I am not sure there are many other bands that have the musical catalog to support a story such as this, including the emotions is stirs up in people on both sides of the screen. I do recommend “Yesterday” if you like The Beatles music, but if you don’t, you may want to avoid it or it may just work your last nerve with the sheer amount of it here.