For so many screenwriters who have writers and idea block, a ridiculous premise in the new movie “Yesterday”, “a world wide 12 second power failure creates a new world that excludes the Beatles (and several other things)”, definitely open up a huge number of new ideas for new screenplays. Like so many time travel and science fiction movies like this one, the audience must suspend all levels of common sense before you can appreciate the story and possibilities that follow.

The beginning of this story defines the real life of a struggling singer Jack Malik, played very well by Himesh Patel and his schoolteacher manager
Ellie Appleton also played very well by Lilly James. The world sees the end result of successful singing careers but we all never see the years of struggle and misery it takes to ever have a remote possibility of success in any part of show business. This movie does a great job of showing a young singer who is tired of the bad gigs and no money and is about to give up all hope, before the miracle happens and he becomes the only person in the world who remembers the Beatles.

I thought that this entire idea was rather risky, because it mixes Romantic comedy with science fiction and the power failure premise is so ridiculous. Once this miracle where some of the greatest songs ever produced are slowly reintroduced to the world, where can the story go from there with a satisfying conclusion? I also though that Lilly James, even though she is very good in her role, was miscast as the eventual love interest of a character played by Hamish Patel, as they just did not look like they could ever be involved romantically.

The best part of this movie is the appearance of Kate McKinnon, who in my opinion has finally gotten the movie role that shows that she can be very funny, by doing nothing other than showing up. She had just about all of the best moments in this film. There are several other funny and ironic moments in this movie that worked very well, especially when the story shows about 4 other things, other than the Beatles that also no longer exist in this new altered world.

The Rotten Tomatoes critics are wrong with their 60% grade for this movie, that I thought was at least a solid 80%. I highly recommend Yesterday.