THE next time Richard Curtis puts fingers to keyboard to write a screenplay someone really should schedule an intervention. The man is addicted not to drink or drugs or gambling but to sheer, unrelenting, will-sapping soppiness.
Take his latest endeavour, Yesterday. At its heart it is a belter of an idea. Jack Malik, a young singer-songwriter (played by Himesh Patel, late of EastEnders), is struggling to break into the music business. He has given up his job in teaching, a field his part-time manager and devoted friend Ellie (Lily James) is still in.
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Evenings and weekends are spent playing to bored punters and often no punters. On the verge of giving up, Ellie tells Jack that “miracles happen” sometimes. So it is that there is a 12-second power cut across the globe, during which a cycling Jack collides with a bus on a darkened street.
When he eventually comes to in hospital he makes a jokey reference to When I’m 64, which Ellie doesn’t get. A few more of these incidents has Jack researching further. Sure enough, it seems that somehow The Beatles did not happen. No Fab Four, but Jack knows they wrote plenty of fab songs. What is a performer to do in such a situation?
Curtis, the writer of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually has a lot of fun with the concept, and for a fair old while Yesterday trots along entertainingly, with the likeable Patel and James riding the rock and roll rollercoaster. A fair way in, director Danny Boyle having held up his end of the bargain with some groovy visuals and fast-paced storytelling, you are just about ready for The Big Explanation, and for some sort of resolution to occur. Short, sweet, bit predictable, but you’ve escaped the worst of Curtis’s gloopiness. No dashes to airports, no Auden poems, no Wet, Wet, Wet feeling it in their fingers and toes, well done everyone.
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But wait, what is this? On and on the story goes, tearing off in one direction, then another, only to get stuck when real-life pop star, Ed Sheeran, appears, playing himself. Sheeran wants to know how Jack can keep coming up with hit after hit, which leads to lots of long, tedious scenes. Meanwhile, Ellie is getting fed up with Jack failing to see how crazily in love she is with him. Yes, there is a romantic dash at one point. Topping everything is a moment towards the end so toe-curlingly awful I shudder to recall it. Too, too much.
What is wrong with you, man? Curtis is like the Boris Johnson of sentimentality, never knowing when to stop. Do yourself a favour, people: stay for the first half then go home and play some Beatles.
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