Here’s What Critics Are Saying About ‘Yesterday’

“Yesterday” is now playing in theaters nationwide. Directed by Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire”) and written by Richard Curtis (“Love Actually”), the musical comedy follows a struggling musician who finds one day that he is the only person in the world who remembers The Beatles, and he parlays this odd circumstance into music superstardom.

Critics have been able to see the film since its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in May, and reactions so far have been mixed, to say the least. Here’s a sample of what critics have had to say.

Collider – Matt Goldberg:

“There are so many interesting directions you could go with this premise as your starting point, and ‘Yesterday’ ignores all of them in favor of a romance that’s bland and uninspiring… the wastefulness of ‘Yesterday’ is undeniable and unavoidable.”

Polygon – Karen Han:

“‘Yesterday’ is proof positive that you actually do need a little more than good songs (which are, in this case, unfortunately dully shot) to make a movie watchable.”

SlashFilm – Hoai-Tran Bui:

“This is a movie as a pop song. Sweet and sentimental, Yesterday gestures toward some greater meaning, only to fall back on lazily written tropes that fail to make anything of its clever concept.”

Los Angeles Times – Justin Chang:

“For a story ostensibly designed as a tribute to the Beatles’ canon, it’s strange how patchily the songs are presented. Not by Jack, who sings them well indeed but by the movie itself, which stages them so interchangeably and chops them up into such truncated, perfunctory bits, that you wonder how they could captivate a newcomer, let alone the entire world, in their present form.”

Tribune News Service – Katie Walsh:

“Even if this modern fairy tale doesn't hold up on close inspection, Boyle does his best to make sure the ride is enjoyable.”

iO9 – Germain Lussier:

“And yet, a few minor quibbles aside, ‘Yesterday’ is a winner. Any time a movie can make you question our personal morals it’s a movie that’s probably working.”