The Mandalorian: Season 1 reviewed.

When it comes to the new 'Star Wars' movies, it's not exactly a secret that audiences around the world haven't been that happy about these films. Especially when it comes to the new trilogy (VII to IX), the quality of these movies have left a bit too much to be desired.

At the same time, even though most of the new films in the series haven't necessarily been that good, the latest television series in the franchise has actually delivered. 'Star Wars: The Mandalorian' has been a surprise hit and has been rather well received. 

Having now seen the first season of 'The Mandalorian' (that consists of eight one hour episodes), I have to say that the show didn't disappoint. It managed to keep me entertained during its first season, even though the series could have been even better too.

So when it comes the things that I liked about the series, one of the best things about 'Mandalorian' is that it keeps things simple. As a series it manages to pay attention to the basics and doesn't try to be too fancy or anything else like that.

In practice, what this means is that unlike in the official Star Wars films, in this one our main character is not someone who has super powers. Instead, our character is a 'simple' bounty hunter called 'Mandalorian', who is a gun for hire for different tasks.

Indeed, in the first chapter of the series, after being introduced to him as a no nonsense character that takes no crap from anyone, he gets his mission that sets him on a journey. We see him being hired - by some imperial forces - to find some special mysterious person. 

Not surprisingly, over the course of the first episode our protagonist runs into all kinds of situations. There's the usual back and forth banter, there's some interplanetary traveling and after our character reaches his destination, some fights and battles too.

What makes this 'mission' so interesting is that at the end of the first episode, we're shown what the whole thing is about. Once our hero reaches his target and finishes his opponents, it turns out that the person that he was searching is none other than 'Baby Yoda'.

Indeed, this reveal on the show is why people have been so happy about 'The Mandalorian'.  The audience - including me - really liked that our grumpy helmet-wearing hero becomes a guardian to that cute little thing with big eyes and ears (and some actual 'Force').

After all, the reason that we care about what happens later during the season is that the hero has to protect 'Yoda' from the imperial forces. He does his best to keep the cute creature safe - which isn't always easy and requires some 'magic' from the baby too.

So based on these things, when I look back at the first season as a whole, I think it's pretty clear that the show managed to get this 'Yoda' + 'Mandalorian' thing right. It managed to create characters that we would actually relate to and care about.

After all, even though there's really nothing wrong with the grumpy main character, Yoda's presence gives the show its much needed contrast that makes things click. It gives us a reason to care and reminds us what the whole thing really is about.

In that sense, now that we're looking forward to the show's second season, hopefully the writers won't screw things up next season. I hope that they manage to come up with storylines and episodes that will keep us entertained and invested in the show.

After all, even though 'The Mandalorian' during its first season was pretty solid, there were a couple of stand-alone episodes that just weren't up to the standard. These episodes seemed to lack purpose and weren't that well thought out to be honest.

Still, when it comes to the show as a whole, if you haven't managed to give it a chance yet, you should give the series a go and check it out. You should give the series a chance and not be discouraged by the trilogy movies that have been released lately.

After all, even though episodes VII-IX were a bit disappointing, this television series works and gets things right. 'The Mandalorian' gets things right and shows that 'Star Wars', despite all its problems still is alive as a franchise and is able to deliver the goods.

Movies that I've managed to see this month.

So when it comes to the movies that have been released in the theatres lately, I have actually managed to see some of them in the recent weeks. I managed to watch these films with my friends who were kind enough to join me at the local cinema.

Indeed, over the last month or so we managed to watch the Matt Damon / Christian Bale vehicle 'Ford v Ferrari', Rian Johnson's homage to Agatha Christie called 'Knives Out' and of course the latest Star Wars film 'Rise of The Skywalker'. 

So when it comes to the first movie that I saw, I saw 'Ford v Ferrari' with my friend who was visiting us all the way from Canada. We decided to give the movie a chance because it looked good and seemed to be a great experience based on its reviews.

After all, based on its rave reviews alone (92% fresh from the critics and 98% fresh from the audience) the film looked like it was must watch stuff. There was no way we were going to miss an opportunity like this to have fun together.

Not surprisingly, the movie about the 'underdog' car manufacturing company Ford trying to challenge the ultimate race car Ferrari in the Le Mans 24 h race did not disappoint. Both me and my friend were totally on the edge of our seats almost from start to finish.

Indeed, even though 'Ford v. Ferrari' works well as a drama - thanks to its competent acting (especially the incredible Christian Bale) and writing - what really 'made' the movie was its racing scenes. I have never seen a better racing movie in my life if I'm being honest.

As a whole. what made the film and its racing scenes especially great is that special effects were used relatively sparingly. It really felt like you were part of the race and you couldn't help but to feel the danger and the rush that is involved in being a racing driver.

In hindsight, the only tiny problem that I had with the movie had to do with its ending. Like probably many others, I'm not sure that we really needed that last ten minutes of the film, even though it had to do with the filmmakers being honest about the aftermath too.

Still, when you put it all together, 'Ford v Ferrari' was certainly a movie that managed to deliver. I absolutely loved seeing the film - especially in a theatre - and I would highly recommend it for everyone to see it on the big screen if only possible.

So the second film that I saw with my friend is 'Knives Out', a classic who-dune-it murder-in-the-family mystery about the murder of a successful patriarch. This is a film that we saw since my friend was excited about it and thought that it would be worth watching. 

Indeed, since my friend is a big time reader among other things, it shouldn't have come as a surprise that she would like to see a story like this on a big screen. She clearly has a knack for movies that have a 'classic' story written all over them.

Fortunately, going to the cinema with her to see the film wasn't a hard decision. The fact that 'Knives Out' had gotten superb reviews (96% fresh from the critics on Rottentomatoes.com) made it a safe choice to go watch it in theatres.

So having seen the film, I have to say that 'Knives Out' turned out to pretty exciting and entertaining. Even though I still had some tiny doubts before seeing it, this ensemble movie kept us entertained from start to finish and didn't disappoint us.

Indeed, as you kept watching the film and trying to guess what really happened - and who actually killed Christopher Plummer's character, there's something for everyone. There's solid drama, there's humour and there are some genuinely touching moments too.

Storywise, the biggest reason that the film works so well is because of the maid character (played by Ana De Armas). Once this genuinely relatable character runs into trouble (no spoilers here), you can't help but to empathize with her and hope for the best.

In hindsight, the only tiny problem with 'Knives Out' is that even though the story makes sense on paper, it feels a bit too convoluted as you watch it unfold. I couldn't help but to think (wrongly though) that there were plot holes and other issues too.

Still, when it all is said and done, as a whole I'm more than happy that we saw the film together. 'Knives Out' turned out to be a solid film and certainly redeemed director Rian Johnson a bit after his not-so-well-received 'The Last Jedi'.

Finally, the third and the last film that I (in this case) saw with my friends is 'Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker'. This a film that we saw last Saturday when we didn't have anything better to do during that evening.

After all, when it comes to the movie, we didn't have our hopes up since we had already read the reviews for the film and knew that it wasn't going to be that great (54% fresh at Rottentomatoes.com). We knew that there were going to be problems in it.

Not surprisingly, having seen 'The Rise of The Skywalker', it has to be said that there are a lot of flaws in the movie and the new trilogy. As unfortunate as it is, this final chapter just didn't work as well as one would have hoped.

Indeed, when it comes to the problems and issues, one of the biggest reasons that the new episodes didn't work is that the writers didn't have a roadmap to follow. There was no overarching story for the trilogy, which made the movies inconsistent and incoherent.

Another problem with the new movies was that the producers - as sad as it is - killed all the original characters. I don't know what they were thinking when they got rid of Han Solo's or especially Luke Skywalker's character, because we really cared about them.

Still, perhaps the biggest problem with the new saga was that the main character Rey had no noticeable arc (no development). Instead of going through 'a hero's journey,' she immediately knew everything about being a Jedi and had no real struggles.

In that sense, even though this new trilogy and its last movie had its moments - especially the last 30 minutes of 'The Rise of The Skywalker' were solid, I was pretty disappointed. I was disappointed how underwhelming the new trilogy turned out to be.

After all, even though I haven't been a 'super fan' of the series, I still expected more from these new movies. I expected more from these films, because clearly the series had potential to deliver something better and more exciting than what we were eventually given.

Know when to trust your eyes as a writer.

So when it comes to making assessments about the quality of your writing, it's not always easy to figure out whether your stuff works. It's not easy to automatically see where you possibly went wrong with the script and why.

After all, as a writer, it's pretty much guaranteed that you tend to get lost in the process as you keep going. The longer you write, the less you're able to see the forest for the trees, no matter how much you might keep telling yourself otherwise.

At the same time, once you actually manage to take that break from writing and get yourself a fresh pair of eyes, things change considerably. It's pretty remarkable how quick and accurate your assessment about the script can be sometimes.

For example, if I take that break from my project and later (the very next day with articles) get back to the task, even a fast glimpse at the text can show that things don't work. A quick cursory look is all that it might take to see that there are problems.

What this means in practice is that if I'm about to start rewriting the article and have read the first half of it (that works), I might already see that there's a problem with the latter half. Without reading the rest, my eyes are already telling me that I screwed up.

The reason for this is that even though I haven't read the full text, I already see that there's something wrong with it length-wise (missing stuff, too short). My mind can see (based on the pacing & the correct structure) how the text should look when it's done right.

After all, if you notice that the second half of the text seems to be too short (or way too long), it's certain that there are logical / transition problems that need to be fixed. (note: 'correct' length doesn't guarantee that the text works as it should).

This same approach - trusting your eyes - also applies to bigger projects like books where you really have to make sure that your structure / pacing works well. In these cases it's crucial that you're able to see when things don't seem to work.

For example, when I started rewriting my book and went through the pages on my notepad, it became obvious pretty fast that there were problems. As I went through the pages, my eyes (that looked at the sidebar) knew that the pacing was simply off.

By that I mean that once I had read the first 1/3rd in the story (structure-wise), as I kept checking the sidebar, I noticed that I had already gone past the 50% mark in actual pages. This was an absolutely terrible thing pacing-wise and meant that I was in trouble.

After all, even though the script doesn't have to be completely in sync with the story 'structure' or the 'formula', it still has to be close enough. You cannot tell a good story if (for example) the latter half of the story happens in the last 10% of the pages.

Fortunately, in this case, once I started rewriting the story and tried to make sure that the chapters would be well paced, little by little the script started to look better. It didn't seem like the pacing was as obviously off as it was in the beginning.

After all, once I had finished the rewriting process, I noticed that the whole thing seemed to work really well now. The story had finally a solid flow from start to finish and actually felt good (I had increased the word count by a whopping 60%).

In that sense, when it comes to this whole thing, it's pretty clear that if you ever find yourself in a situation where it 'looks' like there's a problem with your script, you should take that feeling seriously. You should take the gut feeling seriously and not ignore it.

After all, even though there are certainly exceptions to the rule (like being too tired from too much writing), in most cases your eyes are onto something. They know that there's a problem, even though your brain might not have figured out the details yet.

In that sense, especially when it comes to my book project, it's fairly clear that had I not trusted my eyes when I re-read the draft, I probably would have not fixed the script. It's very likely that I would have just thought that the book was good already and that was it.

After all, especially considering that I had gotten good reviews from my readers and other stuffs, I was clearly in the danger zone here. There was every reason for me to get too comfortable and complacent with my 'very first book ever'.

Fortunately though, even though I lacked experience, in the end, I did trust my eyes once I gave the draft a fresh look after a break. Once I gave another look at the script, I knew that there was a big problem and that my work with the task had not been finished.

Observations about the rewriting process (book).

So when it comes to my book writing project, it can be finally said that - after months of rewriting - it looks like that I've managed to get it more or less completed. It looks like that I'm in a situation where I can't do that much to make it better anymore.

Indeed, over the last few days I've noticed that the story finally seems to work pretty well from start to finish. The book is long enough, the pacing is solid and the story doesn't seem to have moments where you think that it's not believable enough.

Not surprisingly, getting the story to work and readable enough hasn't been that easy or effortless. There have been moments when I have really needed patience and resilience because otherwise things wouldn't have worked out at all.

So when it comes to those annoying surprises that I had during the rewriting process, one of them was how difficult it was to fix certain specific problems in the story. No matter what I did, the fixes didn't seem to work (they initially looked good, but not later).

The problem in these cases was that I had a tendency to micromanage things too much. I more or less thought that as long as I would change some of the specific words, the whole thing would miraculously start to work again (it never did).

In reality, in case you face a situation that doesn't seem to work, it's usually a better strategy to find a solution where (for example) your character simply tries to do something else. That way it's much more likely that the scene will feel more natural and plausible.

Another thing that surprised me during the rewriting process was how much I actually needed to rewrite the book. It's not enough to give your chapters a couple of rewrites and think that it's enough - especially when it comes to those later chapters.

In my case, I found it to be especially frustrating that even though I had fixed the earlier chapters in the book, I had not polished the latter ones enough. I just thought they would be solid because the earlier ones worked too (complete lack of logic there).

Thankfully, when it came to these later chapters, you pretty much 'just' needed to have the patience to revisit and re-re-rewrite them again. You needed to have the patience to keep going and rewrite so that the story could actually become good enough.

Still, when it comes to this whole rewriting process, there was clearly one thing that surprised me the most. By far the biggest surprise (a positive one) was how much the rewriting process actually can have an effect on the length of the book.

After all, when I first wrote here about me starting to rewrite the book, I wrote that perhaps at best I could increase the page count by something like 25%. That was pretty much the best case scenario and I thought I was already reaching a bit with that estimation.

Yet, once I was finally done with rewriting the last chapter in the book, it turned out that I had increased the length of the book by almost 60%. That was a big surprise and made all the difference in making the story as well paced and enjoyable as possible.

In that sense, now that I've finished the script and have started sending it to different publishers, I'm pretty sure that I've done my best here with the project. I'm pretty certain that I've tried my best to make sure that the story could be as good as it can only be.

After all, not only did I manage - in all likelihood - to fix those specific problems in the book, I also managed to re-re-re-write the latter chapters. These efforts helped to make the story 'long enough' and also gave the book as a whole a good flow.

In the end, whether the book is eventually at some point going to get published, is another issue. There are certainly no guarantees and I shouldn't be thinking that it's a shoe-in to get it published by one of the major companies out there.

After all, no matter how good the book is and how much value it might have, it's still a bit of a crapshoot to break it in the industry. It's not guaranteed that I'll be published with this story (it was difficult for J.K.Rowling too) no matter how much I'd want it to happen.

At the same time, considering how hard I've worked with the project, I think I would deserve to get lucky here. I think I deserve to get lucky here, because even though the book could always be a tiny bit better, in my opinion it's still good enough to be published.

Review: 'Super Size Me 2 - Holy Chicken'.

So when it comes to things that I've seen lately, during the last couple of weeks me and my friend have watched documentary films. We've tried to watch some of the latest documentaries that we have found to promising and that could be worth our time.

After all, even though I prefer watching movies in general, I can't deny that watching documentaries might actually make you a bit more informed. There's a chance that you might learn something and that the stuff might enlighten you as a person.

So when it comes to the documentary that we watched, it wasn't a difficult decision to choose what to watch. Once we noticed that filmmaker Morgan Spurlock had come up with a sequel to 'Super Size Me', we wanted to see the documentary right away.

After all, the original 'Super Size Me' was about a guy who tried eating junk food for 30 days at McDonalds. It was about testing and monitoring what happens to your health and your body when you eat nothing but fast food 24/7. 

Thankfully, in 'Super Size Me 2 - Holy Chicken' Spurlock does not stuff food in his mouth (except in the poster). Instead, this time as a chicken farmer / restaurant owner he studies the chicken fast food industry in the U.S. and the industry's marketing.

Indeed, the film is basically an expose of the living conditions of chickens and the claims of the fast food marketing department. It shows all kinds of ethical lapses within the industry and how false most - if not all - the claims that the restaurant chains make are.

So when it comes to story of the film, the first part (out of three) is about Spurlock setting up his own chicken farm. This is the part when see how easy it is to find loopholes for raising the chickens and how individual farmers are being destroyed by the corporate greed. 

The second part in the film is about the advertising industry and how fast food chains mislead about their products. We visit marketing firms & taste labs where we see all kinds of examples about how we are lied about stuffs ('free-range', 'all natural', 'bbq grilled' etc.)

The third part of the documentary is when he finally decides to open his brutally honest 'Holy Chicken' restaurant. He does that so that he could educate people about the industry and how completely misleading it is (with some unexpected results).

So when it comes to the quality of the film, like many others, I found the documentary to be mostly pretty well made. There are a lot of things to appreciate and one can't help but to respect the fact that Spurlock takes a hands on approach with the subject matter.

After all, what is better way to get know about the industry than to start raising those so called free-ranged chicken by yourself. This way we get to see what is required to be in the business and how things are done (thankfully he doesn't blame the farmers).

Another good thing about the film has to do with the marketing claims and 'cheats' with the chicken products. You can't help but to laugh at things like the fact that those charcoal stripes in barbequed chickens are actually painted in.

At the same time, even though I did enjoy the film, I also have to say there were some story problems in the documentary. The 'story' in 'Super Size Me 2' didn't feel particularly natural or smooth and the transitions felt a bit too forced and contrived.

After all, there are clearly timeline problems in the film that make you wonder what happened and when. These really hurt the film's flow - like the fact that they didn't use his chickens to provide meat for his restaurant (chicken footage 2016, restaurant 2018).

Still, when I think about the film as a whole, it has to be said that despite these flaws in the story, the positives nevertheless managed to outweigh the negatives. There's clearly enough material to keep you interested and that these points are pretty well made in the film.

In that sense, if you haven't seen the movie yet, you should give it a chance and watch it. You should watch 'Super Size Me 2 - Holy Chicken', because even though the film could have been better, it was still worth watching and was worth my time.

Movies that I've managed to see this month.

Even though I've been busy with my writing project this month - that seems to go on and on and on, I've also tried to find some time to watch some movies with my friend. We've tried to watch some of the interesting films that have been released lately.

Indeed, over the last two weeks we managed to watch movies like Pixar's 'Toy Story 4', James Cameron's Alita: Battle Angel' and Seth Rogen's comedy 'Long Shot'. We thought that these films would be worth our time and that they would keep us entertained.

So when it comes to the first movie that we saw, it wasn't exactly a difficult decision to watch 'Toy Story 4'. Based on its reviews and the success of the series, it was pretty much guaranteed that the 4th film in the series would work too.

After all, when you have a movie that has a 97% fresh rating on Rottentomatoes.com by the critics and a 94% fresh rating by the audience, things look pretty good. It's pretty clear that the movie is going to be at least somewhat watchable.  

Yet, having now seen the Pixar animation with my friend, I have to say that the movie - surprisingly enough - wasn't as good as I had expected. Even though the film is okay, there were certain story problems in it that shouldn't be overlooked.

For example, one of the problems with 'Toy Story 4' had to do with its 'Forky' character (picture above). I thought that the character was just too depressing (it barely was even a toy) and it didn't really fit in with the rest of the characters and the universe of the film.

Another story problem in the movie had to do with its villain character 'Gabby Gabby'. The fact that the writers decided to turn her into a somewhat misunderstood 'good' character in the 3rd act of the film didn't really work and felt contrived to me.

Furthermore, there were other questionable things too in the story, like that the characters weren't much of a team anymore. Especially when it comes to Woody being selfish and the fact that the movie neglected the supporting cast was pretty awkward.  

Still, despite these mistakes in the movie, I can't deny that the film nevertheless had tons of good qualities about it. There's no question that the film looks beautiful, is well acted and that there are a lot of solid action scenes that keep the thing going.

In that sense, if you haven't seen 'Toy Story 4' yet, you should nevertheless give it a chance. You should watch it, because even though the film has its flaws, there certainly aren't too many good movies to watch out there anyway.  

The second movie that I watched with my friend is 'Alita: Battle Angel'. This is a scifi-action movie produced by James Cameron and the story in the film is based on a popular 1990's Japanese manga series by Yukito Kishiro.

The reason that we watched the film was not because I was super excited to see it. I hadn't really heard that many good things about it and I also didn't feel that good about James Cameron's 'career choices' lately either (he definitely should make movies more frequently).

Yet, once I noticed that the film had a pretty solid 7.4/10 rating on Imdb.com, that was more than good enough. Since the film also had a positive rating on Rottentomatoes.com (62% fresh by critics) I couldn't say no to the film.

So having now seen 'Alita: Battle Angel', even though the film has some minor problems in its story, I have to say that it wasn't that bad at all. The movie turned out to be surprisingly watchable and both me and my friend like it quite a bit.

Indeed, when you look at the movie, among other things, there's no question that the whole thing looks absolutely incredible (its protagonist is 100% computer generated). It's clear that insane amount of work went into making this movie as awesome looking as it is.

Story-wise, the biggest flaw in the movie is that there are way too many story beats and exposition in the film. The writers - one of them was Cameron - and the producers - as unfortunate as it is - weren't able to make the story work as well as it should have.

Still, when I think of the movie as a whole (it has the always great Christoph Waltz in it), I was still more than entertained by it. I liked the characters and the basic story in the film and also its 'Blade Runner meets The Hunger Games' atmosphere.

In that sense, if 'Alita: Battle Angel' doesn't get a sequel (it more or less broke even box-office wise), I would honestly be disappointed. The film was certainly good enough for me and is good enough to deserve a sequel.

The third and the last film that I saw with my friend is 'Long Shot', a Seth Rogen vehicle that I had heard some good things about. The movie had gotten solid reviews (81% fresh at Rottentomatoes.com) and I thought that it might perhaps be worth our time.

After all, even though some of Rogen's comedy films haven't been that good, this one had potential. The premise of Rogen's journalist character being hired to become a presidential candidate's (Charlize Theron) speechwriter was something that intrigued me.

So when it comes to the romantic comedy, I have to say that I was positively surprised by the quality of the film. I was delighted by how well written the movie was (especially the romance part) and how much substance and actual message it had.

Indeed, over the course the movie our odd couple goes through all kinds of situations that are entertaining. These situations (meeting, falling in love, honing policies, campaigning etc.) are something where you can't help but to root for these two.

Substance-wise, the movie is about environmentalism and shows how insanely manufactured politicians can be and how corrupt they are policy-wise. The film does a surprisingly good job at taking jabs at corporate politicians and the media (especially Fox News)

Naturally, since this is a Seth Rogen comedy, the movie is full of naughty dialogue and dirty / funny jokes. The movie is absolutely jampacked with raunchy material, which might not be for everyone if we're being completely honest here.

Still, when it comes to the film as a whole, if you're someone who can even remotely tolerate Seth Rogen as an actor, there's a good chance that the movie is for you. You should not think that the movie is all about silly jokes and being as raunchy as possible.

On the contrary, even though the film is definitely raunchy, it also has a good message. Its honest message preaches about being true to yourself and not taking the easy way out, no matter how difficult or embarrassing doing the right thing might seem at first.

'Yesterday' is an uplifting movie that has integrity.

As a pretty big fan of British comedies, when I heard that there was a new movie by legendary writer Richard Curtis called 'Yesterday', I got my hopes up. I thought that there was a good chance that the film would deliver and that it would be worth my time. 

After all, since my hero Curtis had written movies like 'Love Actually' and 'Notting Hill' and the new film had a strong premise, things looked good. I was confident that the movie about 'a guy who's the only person to remember that The Beatles existed' would work.

Having now seen the movie with my friend, I have to say that 'Yesterday' as a film did turn out to be really good. Even though some critics haven't like it that much (62% fresh at Rottentomatoes.com), the movie was definitely worth watching. 

In essence, the story in the film is about a struggling musician (played by Himesh Patel) who one day notices something truly weird. Once a global power outage occurs, he seems to be the only one who remembers that a band called 'The Beatles' ever existed. 

Not surprisingly, once our protagonist casually starts playing the band's music to his friends, they immediately think of him as some kind of a musical genius. How on earth did a guy like him suddenly come up with awesome songs like 'Yesterday'? 

Later on in the film, once he gets past the usual struggles for an unknown artist, the inevitable happens. After he gets enough exposure as a musician, he becomes the biggest artist on the planet and things start to get more and more complicated.

So when it comes to the quality of the film, one of the best things about the film is that the story in it is creative. Even though the script follows the standard story structure, the movie fortunately doesn't take the easy way out with its story beats.

By that I mean is that had 'Yesterday' been your usual 'Hollywood' hack fest, you would have guessed all the story beats way before they happened. In that case you'd have gotten the usual 'guy gets famous, gets too cocky, loses it all and needs to learn a lesson'.

Fortunately in this movie, the protagonist has integrity throughout the movie. He tries his very best to do the right all the time and at no point of the movie acts like a jerk (which I can guarantee would happen in a Hollywood movie).

Another major reason why the movie works so well - not surprisingly - has to do with it how well it's acted. The movie relies on its main actors not only to be able to act well but also to be capable to perform all those various songs.

After all, without the ability of Patel as a solid actor and a gifted musician, I doubt that the movie would have been as entertaining as it turned out to be. He genuinely manages to deliver here and brings that much needed authenticity and honesty to the film.

In hindsight, when I think about the movie, the only real problem in it has to do with some parts of its screenplay. Even though the story is well paced and didn't feel boring at any point, the 'romance' part in the film didn't work as well as it should have.

After all, especially when it came to the moment of Ellie (played by Lily James) finding someone else, I felt that this part in the story was a bit rushed. That part could certainly have used some polishing and could have been better written.

Still, when I think about the film as a whole, it's pretty clear that even though there were some tiny problems in the story, these minor flaws were not that important. They did not prevent me from enjoying the movie as a whole.

After all, despite the film's minor flaws, there are so many good aspects to the movie that make it shine. These solid comedic and dramatic moments and the overall uplifting tone of the movie certainly made me enjoy the film very much.

In that sense, if you're someone like me who likes to watch romantic comedies and likes to listen to 'Beatles' songs, 'Yesterday' is almost definitely for you. You should give the film a chance and not be discouraged by what some critics have said about it.

After all, even though some critics complained that the film doesn't go deep enough in exploring the premise of 'what if', you shouldn't believe their criticism too much. That aspect of the story is not what the movie in its essence is about.

On the contrary, when you look at the movie as a whole, what the film really is about is about idealism and kindness. It's about being good and kind to each other and making sure that no matter what happens, in the end we are still able to do the right thing.