Special Movie Review - Yes Man

Yes Man

Jim Carrey returns to comedy with Yes  Man, coming off of the serious 2007 thriller The Number 23 and his voice-acting role in Horton Hears a Who! Even though it's been a while, Carrey still has the same antics that have gotten him so far in his career, although at this point it seems as though these shenanigans are what carry most of his films. 

In Yes Man, Carrey plays Carl Allen, a man who says no to everything. He's still trying to forget about his ex-wife, wishes he'd get a promotion at work, and has remained static for years as he lives every single day of his life by routine. His friends Peter (Bradley Cooper) and Rooney (Danny Masterson) are sick of all of Carl's excuses, urging him to change or he'll become a "lonely man," so Carl goes to a convention led by Terrence Bundley (Terence Stamp), author of the extremely successful "yes-man" attitude. Carl is persuaded to try saying yes to everything and finds that this strategy makes his life a lot more interesting - he gets a promotion to corporate, has a ton of fun, and meets an interesting young lady named Allison (Zooey Deschanel). But saying yes to everything has its consequences, as Carl soon learns when people realize that he says yes to anything even if he doesn't want to.

Yes Man's premise draws a bit of a resemblence to Carrey's other film Liar, Liar, but it's somewhat able to distinguish itself somewhat because Carl's obsession with saying yes is not mystical but totally controllable. This is a strength, for Carl feels like a real person who is not sure about his life and his personality. There's a vulnerability to Carl, which comes out later in the film, that explains his boring personality in the beginning of the movie and his taking a liking to his new "yes-man" attitude later on. Carrey does a good job at playing the straight-laced man in the beginning, and it's even more of an accomplishment because he comes off as borderline unlikable. This is a tough thing for Carrey to portray because he has made such a name for himself as a pleasant comedian, but he succeeds in making Carl a bit of a grump. As Carl progresses from boring to spontaneous, so too do Carrey's jokes. 

There's something familiar about all of the humor in Yes Man, though, and it may be funny but it's also pretty shallow - slapstick humor rather than more intelligent fare. Carrey plays his tricks out like every other film; it's a good flashback to his other comedies but it feels stale and if you've seen it once you know what to expect. There are parts that hit extremely well but there are others that are only grin-cracking at best. One example seems to be when Carl explores the wonders of oral sex with a grandmother - it's semi-funny, semi-gross, but has fully been done before. 

Though it makes for good progression, the beginning of the movie does start off a little slow. There's not too much in the way of humor until Carl begins to see the joys of life; it's not exactly boring but it's not too compelling either. Once we get into Carl's willy-nilly yea-saying, though, the movie starts to move towards its ultimate, inevitable climax - Carl finds that saying yes to everything is a no-no - and picks up in both humor and subject matter. By then, though, it's almost critical that Carl become a more likable person or else the film loses the audience.

While the premise of Carl finding a love interest in the impromptu Allison and then having problems with it because of his new-found life motto is foreseeable, their relationship is cute enough, and interesting enough, to hold the interest of the audience, at least until the lackluster climax between the two. There's something missing in their fight over being a yes man; Allison must know something about how Carl says yes to everything because if their relationship was strong enough to warrant them moving in together, they should know a little bit more about each other than their obvious personality traits suggest. In fact, though Allison and Carl feel like the "right" couple, they seem to know very little about each other in the end. Their love is cute but it's slightly unbelievable. 

Deschanel is great as Allison, mostly because she has perfected this type of character. It almost feels like her in the flesh anyway. She is what really makes the film progress, even though Carrey has most of the scenes, and without her insightful thoughts we wouldn't have a movie, just a man who says yes to everything.

I can't help but have mixed feelings about Yes Man. It's pleasant fun for the majority, but towards the end of the film it loses momentum and the finale is forced and cliched. The film does have a good message, but it's buried under slightly unimportant events that create laughs but don't generate much in plot development. And while Carrey does a good job, it feels like he's played it safe with this character as it's an amalgam of all the characters he's ever done, and so Deschanel steals the show here with a fine performance. There are laughs (some forced), there's some unoriginal plot turns, and there's a theme about living your life by doing what you want to do, yet it makes for a mediocre film. Had the film been a bit more funny and a tad less generic, it would have been more of a success. In the end, it turns out like Liar, Liar minus laughs plus 12 years and we've seen it all before.

Yes Man on Rotten Tomatoes