Yesterday (2019) ***

Struggling musician Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) wakes up from a bike accident to find himself the only person in the world who remembers The Beatles. The next move is obvious: Jack starts performing all the Beatles songs he knows, pretending they are his own. It's slow going at first. People aren't really primed to receive these songs from an unknown, British-Indian guy, but the genius of the music eventually leads Jack to a superstardom that he isn't sure he wants.

It's a brilliant premise, and all director Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire” “Trainspotting”) and his cast have to do is let the story tell itself. They do it quite well. Himesh Patel, a newcomer to film, is excellent. Lily James, as Jack's manager and love interest, is charming as can be. Ed Sheeran capably plays a version of himself, providing some great comedy when he suggests Jack change the name of one song to “Hey, Dude.”

I enjoyed “Yesterday” immensely while watching it. Reflecting on it a few days later, I would have to say that the story is fairly thin. Nothing wrong with it, but once you accept the underlying premise, it's just a typical, sweet, romantic comedy. What really stands out about the film is, unsurprisingly, the music. (It should. They paid $10 million, almost half the film's budget, for the rights to these Beatles songs.) Hearing the songs presented in this new context, as if they were just written, really highlights how amazing they are. Seeing characters' faces as they hear, for the first time, “Yesterday” or “The Long and Winding Road” takes me back to when I first heard them.

Otherwise, the best thing about “Yesterday” is the clever premise, that Jack suddenly finds himself in a world where the Beatles never existed. It turns out, though, there's some controversy about how original the idea is. It's based on an original screenplay by Jack Barth, written in 2012 and originally titled “Cover Version.” However, a guy named David Blott released a graphic novel in 2011, also titled “Yesterday,” about a guy who gets sent back in time to the pre-Beatles 1960's and becomes a pop star by recording Beatles songs. The internet also points out other projects with similar themes, including the 2013 novel Enormity, a science fiction series called “Otherworld,” and the BBC series “Goodnight Sweetheart.”

Does any of that make a difference? A little bit, for me. I was giving the filmmakers a lot of credit for the idea, and beyond that, what we have here is a pretty straightforward rom-com, a bit on the sentimental side. “Yesterday” is still a fun time, and a nice love-letter to some great music.

3 stars out of 5