Baby Cinema Club at Everyman Cinemas is my favourite maternity leave activity. I’ll be reviewing all the films baby and me see. All reviews based on my own opinions/experiences.

Date seen: Tuesday 2nd July

Starring: Himesh Patel, Lily James, Ed Sheeran, Kate McKinnon

Directed by: Danny Boyle

In many ways this film was formulaic and mediocre. There was no epic plot twist or anything that you wouldn’t expect from a British romantic comedy written and produced by Richard Curtis. But the familiar feel good movie devices kept the audience from distraction allowing the real stars of this film, John, Paul, George and Ringo, to take centre stage.

So many people, whether they realise it or not have been touched by the songs of the Beatles but it was half a century ago that they were written and now feels like the right time to be reminded of how brilliant they are. As for me I’ve been a Beatles fan as long as I can remember thanks to my dad who played Yesterday, Yellow Submarine and Ob-La-Di on his guitar and always had their music playing in the car along with The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple and Queen (to name but a few). Whilst my friends in primary school were into New Kids on the Block, the first CD I ever bought at 8 years old was the Help album. I loved it and listened to it on a loop for at least two years. On my 9th Birthday I was given the Help movie on VHS which I promptly consumed continuously for a year or so. I remember my dad laughing a lot more than I did during the Help movie. Perhaps I should revisit it now I’m a certified adult.

The day my dad died my brother and I sat next to him in hospital, just waiting and decided we needed music on. I stared at my phone, every song ever released at my fingertips. My brother understood my dilemma. This would be the last music our dad would hear. He loved it all so much so what to choose? My brother, who is named after John Lennon’s son, looked at me and said, “just play the Beatles…”.

These songs that mean so much to so many were showcased in a funny, light-hearted movie that I am glad I have seen. All the actors were perfectly cast and gave brilliantly funny performances. I found myself really caring about Himesh Patel’s and Lily James’s characters; the quintessential childhood sweethearts destined to be together… eventually. For me Kate McKinnon stole the show with her power hungry, wealth grabbing, evil villain music executive character making me laugh more than she probably should have.

Many reviews of Yesterday lament the fact that a truly great body of work that is the songs of The Beatles should be boiled down to a silly rom com where a world without The Beatles is exactly the same as it is now… just without them in it. I agree, the real world would be a little sadder, less compassionate and more cruel if a whole generation of people hadn’t grown up with these songs resulting in a potential dystopian future that any fiction writer could easily have a field day with. I found myself going down a rabbit warren trying to define all the massive plot holes in this movie until I came to the conclusion that life is too short to be a pedant about it and that if this film had taken itself more seriously then it would have lost its charm.

You only have to look at the movies The Beatles themselves starred in like Help to see that they didn’t take themselves too seriously so maybe we should do the same and remember them as four mates who had a laugh together and just happened to be 3 of the best songwriters of a generation… plus the greatest drummer in the world :0)