There’s A Rom-Com Coming Out About A World Where The Beatles Never Existed — But Why?
It's called 'Yesterday' and I don't get it.
Yesterday is an upcoming romantic-comedy starring newcomer Himesh Patel, Lily James, Kate McKinnon, and Ed Sheeran, that was written by Richard Curtis of Notting Hill fame and directed by Danny Boyle, the filmmaker behind Slumdog Millionaire. It is about a man who wakes up one day to discover that he is the only person who remembers The Beatles.
Now listen, if that introduction reads like it was composed by someone desperately attempting to hold their sanity together, that’s because it was. It has been an hour or so since Yesterday came into my life, and to be honest, I’m not convinced that it’s not proof that I’ve died and am inhabiting some bizarre version of purgatory, or that the computer simulation we all inhabit hasn’t broken down and is furiously jamming together random words and people.
On the casting front, there’s a lot going for the film. McKinnon plays a diabolical and cut-throat record exec, so it’ll be fun to see her in full baddie mode, and James proved the light and grace she can bring to a modern musical comedy with her turn in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Oh, and Patel, making his big screen debut, appears to be a charming presence.
But on the everything else front, Yesterday is baffling.
Do me a favour and watch the trailer, if only so that we can inhabit this Lovecraftian hell-world together.
See what I mean here?
I mean, from an economic standpoint, I get it. Everybody loves The Beatles. Everybody loves love! Everybody (apparently) loves ginger-headed scamp Ed Sheeran. Jam all those things together and hey, you’ve got yourself a surefire hit, especially if the man behind the screenplay is responsible for some of the most beloved romantic comedies of recent memory.
Danny Boyle wants me to imagine a world where none of this happened???? I refuse pic.twitter.com/7nbdeLqmxI
— Hannah Woodhead (@goodjobliz) February 12, 2019
But what I don’t get is literally anything else.
Watching this trailer is a little like staring into the sun, in that the more you focus on in, the more black spots appear in your vision, until eventually the thing sends you totally blind and you are doomed to inhabit a darkened world with only the memory of treacly Beatles covers and ‘Hey dude’ jokes to keep you company.
I'm The Girl Who Clawed Her Own Eyes Out After Watching The Trailer For Danny Boyle's Yesterday – This Is My Story
— WHAT MANI WANT (@ManiLazic) February 13, 2019
My only hope is that the final twist is that everybody hates Patel’s character, and they’ve all banded together to play an elaborate prank on him, making him think they don’t know The Beatles when actually they’re just enjoying watching him transform into a self-obsessed prat. Now that would be good.