Review: Yes Man

[Originally published in the Forge Press 05.12.08]

Review: Yes Man

With a Jim Carrey comedy you know what to expect, namely facial expressions and funny noises being emitted from a man who, at forty-six years old, should possibly know better. Yes Man employs these qualities to their fullest extent throughout in a vain attempt to hide the fact that the plot is essentially non-existent and merely consists of a bunch of non sequiturs whose only connection is Captain Malleable doing his magical face changing trick in each of them. But whatever. As long as Carrey is allowed to shout things like "I've got blisters on my fingers!" in Ringo Starr's voice, some source of enjoyment can always be gleaned from Yes Man's lifeless, decaying corpse.

The story involves Carrey's protagonist Carl Allen, a banker who lives alone, spends his free time watching endless DVDs, shuns his friends and says no to every offer that comes his way. After attending a self-help seminar, Allen then decides to say yes to every offer that comes his way. Who saw that coming? Even more unbelievably, his saying yes to everything leads to him meeting a girl and they both fall in love. And he gets a promotion. And everybody thinks he's great, even though he's essentially lying to everybody. It's all so fresh. I can only assume the screenwriters took Danny Wallace's original novel, read the synopsis, possibly urinated on it before throwing it in the bin, laughed, and then set about writing their own screenplay based on the last film they'd both recently seen and thought the world needed more of, which was Bruce Almighty. Thanks guys.

The only actor who actually seems like they're having a good time is Rhys Darby, who plays Carl's boss, Norm. Sure, he might be an imitation of David Brent, but considering the screenwriters enjoy reusing ideas so much they managed to weave a whole film out of doing this, at least with Norm they stole an idea which is funny. However, they don't stop there. Later in the film, Norm holds a party which, in its execution is such a blatant rip-off of Rick Moranis' gathering of his neighbours in Ghostbusters that I'm sure Moranis is probably spinning in his grave. If he were dead. Which he isn't. Other than Norm, the only character worth remembering is the love interest, Allison, who isn't memorable because of anything she does (Oh look! She's quirky! Look at her running and photographing! Only Juno is quirkier!), but rather because she's played by Zooey Deschanel, who may or may not be an angel. Any scene she is in goes some way to alleviating the hebetude the film tries so hard to induce, and in particular the ones where she wears the cutest faux-military jacket in the world.

Of course, if you don't happen to like Zooey Deschanel then you're a little stuck. You may take comfort in seeing a 78 year old woman remove her dentures moments before engaging in oral sex with Carrey, which is possibly the highlight of his career after everything else he's ever done, including the Cable Guy. Solace may also be found in an excruciatingly lengthy fight scene between a 'drunk' Carrey (hello silly voice/funny face combination) and a muscle-bound cliché. Happily, it never seems to end, allowing one pun after another to fall flat on its face while the audience watches on reticently, kind of like slowing down to see a car crash.

In all, Yes Man is only offensive in the sense that it doesn't try at all to create something even slightly original, choosing instead to rely on tried and tested mediocre formulas in order to deliver a mildly amusing diversion for an audience that will forget the film the moment they leave the theatre. So, while Carl Allen would unequivocally say yes to the question, "Do you want to go and see Yes Man?", I know that he's really thinking "No, obviously not."

Grant Price