Yesterday

Une idée et un début tellement intéressants, venant d'un duo de cinéastes de renom anglais, mais le résultat n'est qu'une douzaine de morales sur les valeurs de la vie, et que l'amour est la plus importante de toutes. Ce qui m'a le plus surpris, c'est le potentiel totalement inexploité du succès des Beatles, et de la musique en général. Ce n'est pas un film musical. Et pourtant, chaque spectateur s'y attend. Et un handicap majeur : le protagoniste fade du rôle principal, qui est facilement mise à l'ombre même para sa petite amie à l'écran. Est-ce que cela s'est fait ainsi parce que c'était un coup d'essai rapide afin de profiter du succès de Bohemian Rhapsody? Cela semble être le cas, et de façon très condescendante envers le spectateur, il y a des similitudes avec BR. Mais sinon, c’est presque le résultat contraire à celui d’une recette similaire. (26/08/2019)

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)

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)

Danny Boyle has made stronger films, but this likeable and enjoyable musical also has charm. Have you also noticed that they've been ripping it up lately? After Queen and Elton John there's The Beatles, but it's presented in a fairly original way, which is appreciated. I would appreciate it if more than three things disappeared from this world. Himesh Patel is solid and the finale is moving. 75% (31/10/2019)

I like this garbage. It's cheerful, positive, naive, with a likable main character who has a fairly sensible girlfriend, and well, The Beatles to top it all off. A summer movie where you don't have to bother to think, just enjoy the songs, a British joke here and there for variety and you just get what you expect from a movie like this. Sure, it doesn't have much extra, but it still manages to entertain and if you know what you want from a movie like this, I think there's a decent chance you'll get it. (29/06/2019)

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)

Danny Boyle has made another fairy tale, but compared to Slumdog Millionaire, I was less bothered by its fabulousness, in fact not at all. Why is that? Well, the script by Richard Curtis, who doesn't hesitate to mine an amazing idea from start to finish, keeps capitalizing on it and, thanks to Boyle's imaginative direction, turns it into a terrific comedy and one of the coolest stories in recent memory. Indeed it is, for the entire two hours I was either smiling or laughing and it's been a long time since I've walked out of a theater from a comedy that I remembered so many jokes and laughed when I recalled them. The comic plot clearly outweighed the predictable romantic one, but it didn't matter, on the contrary this ratio fit the overall mood of the film perfectly. Of course, I agree with the message that the Beatles' music is brilliant in any era;so if you feel the same way and if, like me, you'll spend the whole film looking for Paul and Ringo to appear, Yesterday has something wonderful in store for you. (29/06/2019)

I adore Curtis and I respect Boyle a lot, but here it felt as if they were just cashing-in for their retirement. A film without spark, drive or plot that fails to bring anything distinctive or remarkable to its simple and predictable premise. The protagonist has no character and the story never places any major obstacles in front of him, he doesn’t even have to defy his loved ones, he simply steals the works of others despite moral doubts, and in the end he changes his mind and everything is OK. The world of About Time perhaps had similarly loosely arranged values, but it managed to fully draw in the viewer, crushing them emotionally several times, while declaiming its ideas in a tasteful and original way; this one in contrast, is nothing but sentimental cliché with an unrealistic romance that takes the music of The Beatles only as a pretext to pin its shallow ideas. The funniest scene is the first performance of “Let It Be” in front of the family and the most beautiful is the meeting with John Lennon, where I could see Curtis and it warmed my heart, but the rest is massive and bitter disappointment. (17/10/2019)

J’étais initialement euphorique à l’idée que je pourrais à tout le moins, par le biais de cette comédie romantique, entendre les meilleurs tubes des Beatles. Ces chansons, du moins dans leurs versions studio, sont très peu présentes dans le septième art étant donné les prix exubérants des licences. Cela dit, mon euphorie est ensuite quelque peu retombée. L’idée qu’a eue Richard Curtis de présenter un monde alternatif dans lequel se volatilise tout un pan des phénomènes culturels (pas seulement la musique des Beatles) est intéressante, mais n’est pas tout à fait aboutie en ce qui concerne les idées et les gags variés (entre autres la claque bien méritée par la bien-pensance actuelle comme quoi le White Album aurait une connotation raciste). Mais au final, on n’apprend pas grand-chose sur les causes, le fonctionnement et la logique de ce monde et l’amalgame scénaristique est beaucoup trop fragmenté. Et c’est sans parler du fait qu’il a fallu lourdement intervenir en postproduction (toute la ligne de narration secondaire avec Ana de Armas a dû être retirée lors du montage). Pour le reste, l’intrigue romantique se conforme aux canons de l’histoire d’amour qui devait simplement s’y trouver. Je trouve aussi qu’Ed Sheeran a trop d’importance dans le film vu son jeu d’acteur rigide. À part ça, c’est un film d’été techniquement sans reproche qui vise à attirer les spectateurs par son ambiance feel-good et nostalgique et à divertir, ce qu’il réussit sans doute à faire chez la plupart des gens. (23/07/2019)

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)

L’idée est géniale et a un potentiel dément, mais je dirais qu’elle a été catastrophiquement inexploitée et insatisfaite. Déjà, c’est un film sur les chansons des Beatles et ce n’est que dans le générique de fin qu’on entend une chanson complète. Le héros central ne convient pas du tout au rôle – ou alors, il convient, mais manque d’impressionner. Lily James perd aussi pas mal de son charme dans le rôle qu’elle incarne. Puis, la star adulée qu’est Ed Sheeran m’a agacé tout du long et, enfin, les autres sont plus ou moins insignifiants. J’attendais beaucoup, beaucoup plus de la part de Danny Boyle. Le plus intéressant, c’est peut-être de se demander ce qui aurait été mieux pour John Lennon, si on peut dire ça comme ça. (27/10/2019)

Richard Curtis delighted me immensely with his imaginative and a bit wacky script. It's perhaps a pity that he didn't take the director’s chair himself, although the seasoned Danny Boyle made a pretty good movie using his screenplay. The musical comedy Yesterday helped me to forget the bleak reality of everyday life for a while. I was very happy to be carried away on a wave of romance to the sound of immortal melodies of the Beatles. I really needed to see and hear something so amazingly positive in these difficult times. (80%) (13/03/2022)