Yesterday

British culture so sophisticated that even Meky would not get lost in it. Danny Boyle revels in the kitsch written by Richard Curtis, Himesh Patel is authentic and Lily James is utterly endearing (though my heart beats for Kate McKinnon). Lovers of the Liverpool bunch will love it. And Robert Carlyle fans will have their jaws dropped. (11/01/2022)

Such an interesting idea and kickoff from a great duo of English filmmakers that resulted in trivial moralizing about life values and love as the most important thing. What, in my opinion, was most astonishing was the completely unused potential of the Beatles’ hits and music in general. This is not a musical film, even though each and every viewer expects it to be. And the key drawback is the unimpressive lead actor, who is outshined by his character’s girlfriend. Is the overall outcome attributable to the film being a quick attempt to ride on the back of the success of Bohemian Rhapsody? That seems so, as it even panders to the viewer in a similar manner as BR. But in this case, a similar recipe produced the almost opposite result. (26/08/2019)

A well tuned crowd-pleaser for undemanding audiences. If I wanted to dig deeper, I would find plenty of arguments to tear it apart (like the total lack chemistry between the two main characters, or the morally problematic starting point and consequences), but I decided that I don’t want to. In any case, I will probably forget it before the festival is over. #KVIFF2019 (29/06/2019)

After the immortal songs of Queen and Elton John, filmmakers resurrected The Beatles, whose equally timeless songs are suddenly almost forgotten. The premise is indeed interesting, and I liked that they made some effort to bring The Beatles and their universe up to date. The lovely Lily James charmed me again and I hope newcomer Himesh Patel appears in future films. I liked the funny cameo of Ed Sheeran, but on the other hand, I still can’t bring myself to like Kate McKinnon. If you look for flaws in the film, I'm sure you can find something, but I was satisfied in the cinema. I was carried away on immortal rock classics, I experienced with the main characters their turbulent relationship and last but not least I was moved and surprised by the participation of a certain unnamed singer who rose from the dead. It's cheesy and plays on the emotions in places, but it's delivered in such an endearing way that I swallowed hook, line and sinker. (07/07/2019)

It is a nice idea, but also improbable (would the Beatles and their love songs be as relevant in the current cynical times as they were in the 1960s?) and by no means original (Yesterday essentially just develops an idea from Back to the Future). Execrable processing. The film is merely a terribly haphazardly designed rack upon which to hang Beatles songs, with cheap jokes (the renaming of “Hey Jude” to “Hey Dude”), an unconvincing romantic storyline, impossibly written female characters (a problem with all of Richard Curtis’s screenplays) and a protagonist who achieves everything (and does not lose anything significant) though fraud. A prefabricated crowd pleaser without spark, wit, visual inventiveness or a single real emotion, which in forced dialogue only presents ready-made truths and does not allow the viewer to discover anything or be amazed. It also does a disservice to some of the best songs in history. In fact, the film works with those songs in completely the same way as the caricature of the greedy music manager that Kate McKinnon came up with – like products from which it is necessary to wring as much money as possible. 50% (20/06/2019)