Yes Man [M]

A man who has boxed himself into a routine and lonesome life by constanly using the word "no" is about to bring his "safe" world crashing down by just saying "yes."

I saw this film when it first came into work and I clearly remember not liking it. I thought Jim Carrey was disappointing, I remember not really liking the story. I just remember not really liking it. But I saw it on the shelf today when I was returning some dvds, thought "what the hell", brought it home, and just finished watching it. My views on the subject have completely changed. I was laughing, admiring the characters, and amazed that there were a few familiar faces that I didn't remember from the first time.

Carl is a man who has spent his life saying "no" and making excuses. Playing it safe, so to speak. Carl is so good at saying "no" that it gets to the point where he misses his best friend's engagement party and realises that, unless he makes some serious changes in his life, he will end up very much alone. One day Carl runs into an old friend who persuades him to come to an motivational seminar that teaches people to be open and say the word "yes". As Carl dives right into the whole thing, he makes a promise to himself that he will say "yes" to everything. Even if he doesn't really want to. If he says "no" things will happen that will bring him nothing but unhappiness. Saying "yes" will bring only good things, but Carl soon learns that you can have too much of a good thing.

Jim Carrey was brilliantly funny, as always. His character was sort of similar to the one he played in Liar Liar, only not as over-the-top. Jim played this role with just the right about of vocal and physical humour so as not to push it over the edge. Yes, man!

Zooey Deschanel is Alison, a special love interest. I'm drawing special attention to Zooey because I think that the world needs to be aware of her. She has to be the most beautiful woman in the world. She is different, and therefore has the talent to play different, charming, quirky, and delighfully memorable characters such as Alison. I absolutely love her and some of the outfits she got to wear in this flick were downright awesome!

Joining Jim and Zooey in the quest to say "yes" are other famous faces such as Bradley Cooper, Rhys Darby and Terence Stamp.

I am going to say that the one thing I didn't really like about the movie was the fact that the whole time, you are aware of the fact that Carl could say no. I mean it wasn't like Liar Liar where it was clearly established that he HAD to tell the truth, the whole no-lying-for-24-hours curse thing. But in Yes Man it wasn't really clear why he couldn't say "no". I suppose it was just the character doing the whole dive-right-into-the-deep-end type thing, but it just annoyed me. The other thing that annoyed me slightly was the drama that got added to the story. It went to terrorism and became sort of silly. Didn't really like that.

Aside from those two points, the film had a very clever script, all the actors played their parts brilliantly, especially Rhys Darby, he was nothing short of adorkable genius in this film, and there was a realism to it. Here's a fun fact, Jim Carrey actually bungee-jumped off a bridge in this movie. No stunt guy. That was Jim.

Filled with laughter, screaming, nudity, and many "yeses", Yes Man is quite a funny little comedy that is well worth seeing.