awful cinematography

Excuse me sir, but you have no idea what you're talking about.

The "ochreous" palette served its purpose, to create an agoraphobic and discomforting feeling. In that sense it was quite succesful. Your own post could be considered as a proof of that.

Have you ever watched Taxi Driver? Have you noticed how "unpleasant" is the music score and the cinematography? That's not a "fault" or "defect", it was Scorsese's idea to use that music and color palette in order to show to the audience how Travis Bickle sees the world: (ugly, distorted, filthy).

Now, I am not comparing this movie with Taxi Driver, I only mentioned it in order to illustrate how come the color palette can be used to change the mood of the audience.
Can you imagine a movie like "3 días" (Before the fall) having a colorful and rosy cinematography? I can't.

The "yellow" is called color correction, which is done in post-production, and it's usually the director's artistic choice. The cinematography in this film was good.