Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is an aspiring musician in England who has finally come to the conclusion that he will never be able to make a living as a musician. Despite Ellie's (Lily James) reassurances that he should carry on, he decides to put up his guitar and get a real job. While biking home from this fateful decision, there is a world-wide power outage for a few seconds. During that brief flicker of darkness, Jack is hit by a bus. He awakens in hospital with two missing teeth. To celebrate his release from hospital, Ellie bought him a new guitar; the old one didn't survive the accident. Just to test it out, he plays a Beatles' song: Yesterday. Everyone is floored by this terrific song. Jack thinks they are pranking him. However, the joke goes too long. Searching on Google later, he can find no record of the Beatles having existed! He also finds there is no Coca Cola or cigarettes! And so begins his career as the greatest songwriter the world has ever seen and skyrocketing fame.
Light and entertaining, this is a fun comedy. Ed Sheeran plays himself and is an early booster for the rising talent of Jack Malik. The songwriting duel between the two is terrific, especially since the audience knows that Jack has an unfair advantage. It was also funny to see how difficult it might be to reassemble so many lyrics just from memory. Then there is an appearance of an elderly John Lennon (Robert Carlyle) who did not form a band and lived his life in England. Imagine that.
Good popcorn fun!
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