海角大神

The premise of 鈥淵esterday鈥� promised big things. Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), a struggling, moderately talented singer-songwriter from Suffolk, England, is hospitalized after colliding with a bus during a mysterious, momentary global blackout. Emerging from a coma, he is astonished to discover that, for everybody but himself, the Beatles never existed. His vinyl Beatles albums have vanished. When he Googles the Beatles, only insects come up. He manages to remember the lyrics to many of the Fab Four鈥檚 greatest hits, and soon he is performing their songs as his own and being hailed as a genius.聽

Far-fetched, yes, but a fantasy ripe with thematic possibilities. What would the world, and not just the music world, be like if there had been no Beatles? The problem with the film, as directed by Danny Boyle (鈥淪lumdog Millionaire鈥�) and written by Richard Curtis (鈥淟ove Actually鈥�), is that, except for a few other odd omissions, Jack鈥檚 brave new world looks and sounds remarkably like the old one.聽

I can鈥檛 imagine this blandness was intentional. Why set up a great premise only to flatten it out?

It doesn鈥檛 help that Patel never conveys what it might be like to suffer such an emotional dislocation, knowing that he alone is the vessel for this lost legacy. He鈥檚 so uncharismatic that he makes even his Best of the Beatles renditions sound unexciting. It doesn鈥檛 feel right that he becomes a worldwide sensation. The movie misses entirely what made the Beatles such a phenomenon. The notion that anybody can perform 鈥淚 Want to Hold Your Hand鈥� and wow audiences in the same way that John, Paul, George, and Ringo did is just plain nutty.

The filmmakers work in a soppy love angle that only drags things down even further. Ellie (Lily James), Jack鈥檚 longtime friend and sometime manager before he hits it big, harbors an unrequited crush on him. He is, of course, too dim to recognize her banked ardor, and eventually his fame pushes them apart. You can see where this is going. Fame 鈥� big surprise! 鈥� isn鈥檛 all it鈥檚 cracked up to be. Love conquers all.聽

It鈥檚 as if the filmmakers were intent on trashing their film鈥檚 best possibilities.聽

There are a few compensations. The scene where Jack attempts to play 鈥淟et it Be鈥� to his distracted, uncomprehending parents in their living room is pretty funny. Kate McKinnon, playing a predatory music manager who wants to package Jack as the next big thing, strikes a few sparks, although her scenes are derivative of many other movies about showbiz wickedness. What presumably was intended as stinging satire is instead fairly ho-hum. And James, in a rather thankless role, is lovely. Her Ellie is better than Jack, or this movie, deserve.聽

Of course, there is also a wealth of Beatles songs on the soundtrack, and despite Jack鈥檚 subpar renditions, their beauty still pokes through. I can鈥檛 imagine a world without the Beatles, but I can well imagine a world without this movie.聽Grade: C (Rated PG-13)