Yesterday (2019 Danny Boyle)

First of all, 'Yesterday' is a phenomenal song.

Richard Curtis (and Jack Barth) story posits a world where the Beatles never existed (and in an amusing joke, therefore neither does Oasis), but failing performer Himesh Patel somehow remembers them and starts doing good business with their material. He leaves his best friend / manager Lily James (who's clearly nuts about him) to make it big in the US, that corrupt bigness represented by a caricature baddie / producer Kate McKinnon, meeting Ed Sheeran along the way - who's at a loss how this genius keeps coming up with great songs.

Curtis has some fun with this, for example he struggles to remember what the confounding lyrics of 'Eleanor Rigby' are, though somehow remembers all the others easily (I don't think I could remember all the lyrics of any Beatles song - well, maybe some of 'A Day In the Life', but that's it.)

Meanwhile a couple of people who do remember the Beatles make an appearance for no good plot reason. As does John Lennon (Robert Carlyle).

Then there's a massive gig in the performer's home town, and he spills the beans, releasing all the material free (he might have taken this opportunity of having an audience of thousands to play his own material) and reunites with the girl.

Some jokes about other things that also don't exist (smoking, Coke, Harry Potter) don't make much sense, like the film as a whole, which is undemanding fun, but a notch below other Curtis gems, almost an auto-pilot Curtis, featuring the usual Curtis 'types' all over the place (e.g. thick friends, unimpressed parents Meera Syal and Sanjeev Bhaskar), and Boyle's trademark annoying tilted cameras for no good reason.

I have enjoyed About Time more each time I've seen it, which is also nonsense, so maybe this one will grow in stature, but I'm afraid to say that my initial impression is that it isn't very good.

Unlike some of Jon Harris's editing (T2 Trainspotting, Kingsman, The Two Faces of January, 127 Hours, Kick-Ass, Eden Lake, Stardust, Starter for Ten, Layer Cake - hm, must watch Layer Cake again some time), which is cool.