Yes Man (***)

Directed by: Peyton Reed
Starring: Jim Carrey, Zooey Deschanel, Bradley Cooper, Terrence Stamp, Rhys Darby
Seen: January 2nd 2009

*** Out of ****

Carl Allen (Carrey) works at a bank as a loans man, and he’s the perfect man for the job, he never says yes to anything or anyone for anything. We start of with Carl standing in line in a DVD rental store, and when Peter (Cooper) calls him and asks what he’s doing that evening he tells him he’s at home doing nothing, with Peter right outside the store looking at Carl. But still he tries even more ridiculous avoidance tactics. It all catches up to him however, and at a seminar that touts the power of Yes, he is converted, quite reminiscent Jack Black’s transformation in Shallow Hal, to only say yes, to everything, only this time it’s not Tony Robinson, it’s Terence Bundley (Stamp).

Jim Carrey is here in all his comedy glory, and fans of the man will absolutely love Yes Man. The interesting thing though, is that I would not primarily classify Yes Man as a comedy, Yes Man is a romantic comedy, and the chemistry between Deschanel (Allison) and Carl is unmistakably perfect. She is fantastically cute and strange and just herself in all she does, and Carl is a completely different person because of his Yes-tactics.

The laughs for the first half of the film were out loud, at least for me, and after that still good, but more from the romantic point of view – which I see as guffaws and handling awkwardness (90% of true love is acute, ear-burning embarrassment). There is the classic romantic comedy plot-line: boy meets girl, they fall for each other, a big revelation threatens everything, and things are resolved (this is not a spoiler, we all know what’s going to happen).

Peripheral characters and events are entertaining, most notably Carl’s manager Norman (Darby), who is perpetually questing for friendship. The parties he arranges are all themed, and I found the Dobby-guest at the Harry Potter themed party very amusing, like most small details in the film. Carl joining Allison’s jogging photography class also had me in stitches, the novelty of the idea perfectly in touch with Deschanel’s character in the film.

Most of all I took away from the movie an overbearing feeling that being a Yes Man in life is actually something to strive for. We all say no to far too many things in life, and we end up regretting what we did not do in life more than the bad/negligent things that we did. I vote Yes for Yes Man.