Review of Yesterday (2019) by Theredsky — 06 Jul 2019

This is a decent movie that I thoroughly enjoyed. Here are the negatives. Just like Ma and Brightburn, the concept of the film is really good but it isn’t explored enough. You want to know more but it decides to focus on more character drama.

Ed Sheeran is not the best actor in the world and he just looks incredibly awkward in this film. In most scenes he is in, it looks like he is incredibly confused. Another aspect would be that there are a lot of plotholes thrown into this film that when you notice them, it starts to take you out of the experience.

The editing for this film is not good at all. There are too many cuts for some scenes and scenes just keep cutting away every 2-3 seconds when it shouldn’t. The camera angles are so obnoxious in some scenes that it is distracting.

Some scenes are tilted at a 45 degree angle for no apparent reason at all and it is just annoying. The humor is not that funny at all and I only chuckled one joke throughout the entire film. I’m not huge on Kate McKinnon as the primary antagonist in this movie.

She just feels out of place surrounded by everyone else. Here are the positives. Himesh Patel and Lily James do a great job and have great chemistry together. Patel’s performance is actually really good.

He gives a ton of emotion, he’s a good singer, and he knew what he was doing. Most of the supporting cast does a good job with what they are given. I was surprised about how much heart there was in this film.

You genuinely care about the experiences they go through. There is one particular scene that I feel is very very touching. Patel’s character is given an address and he drives to this secluded location where he knocks on the door and John Lennon answers it.

He gives some inspirational words to Patel’s character and it is very nice, emotional, and touching. The new renditions of The Beatles songs is actually pretty good. I enjoyed listening to them a lot.

The cinematography is good in most areas but it is not special. The tone remains consistent throughout the entire film and it’s also paced really well. Overall, Yesterday is a great Beatles love letter with lots of heart, good acting, and interesting renditions of good songs but is held back by major plot holes, poor editing, weird casting choices, and an underexplored premise.

I give Yesterday a 6/10.