I’ve never been the biggest fan of Jim Carrey. Since he became a star with the release of 1994’s Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, it’s impossible to deny his comedic skills but his manic style hasn’t always appealed to me; in the last few years, Carrey has tried to broaden his horizons with more dramatic roles in The Truman Show, Man on the Moon and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. His latest effort, Yes Man is a comedic turn with some dramatic undertones. If you enjoyed Carrey’s 1997 film Liar, Liar, Yes Man is likely your kind of movie.
Directed by Peyton Reed (The Break-Up), the film is based on the true story and book of the same name by British humorist Danny Wallace. Since this is Jim Carrey we’re talking about all the “Britishness” has been taken out of Boyle’s story and the script has been crafted to suit Carrey’s comic style. He plays Carl Allen, a recently divorced loan officer who is mild mannered but so depressed, he’s taken to staying home at night watching movies.
Carl’s life is in a total rut until his friend Nick (John Michael Higgins) who lets him in on a little secret: he’s been a much happier and fulfilled guy since he attended a “Yes!” self-improvement seminar that insists you say “yes” to everything. Carl decides go to the seminar, is called out by the movement’s guru (Terrence Stamp) and takes a shot at being a “yes man.” At first, he doesn’t believe in it but after awhile, he finds life really does open up to him.
He meets a single, free-spirited young lady, Allison (Zooey Deschanel), with whom he starts to build a relationship; he starts saying “yes” to every loan application that comes across his desk and finds that helping people makes him feel better and turns out to be a sound business decision for the bank; he learns to speak Korean and to play the guitar and to fly a plane; he even dates a Muslim woman he connect to on the internet.
The message is a simple one: being nice is far more rewarding than being mean. Truth be told, Yes Man borrows many of its concepts from other films including the aforementioned Liar, Liar, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Bucket List, among others. Even so, the concept works pretty well and creates some solid laughs. Yes Man is the kind of film that will bring a smile to your face throughout.
Carrey does a great job of holding back some of the manic energy and incessant mugging that has turned me off of some of his earlier movies. He adds in the comedy when it’s needed but he allows us to see a human side of Carl Allen that makes the character and the story, seem all the more realistic. The rest of the supporting cast fleshes the story out well: Bradley Cooper plays Carl’s likable, supportive lawyer buddy; Rhys Darby is hilarious as Carl’s nerdy boss, desperately in need of fitting in (think of Rick Moranis’s character from Ghostbusters.)
The only major flaw in Yes Man is an FBI investigation that goes way too far. Carl and Allison have taken a spontaneous weekend vacation to Lincoln, Nebraska. While checking in for their return flight home, Carl is detained by FBI agents, who have profiled him as potential terrorist because he has taken flying lessons, studied Korean, approved a loan to a fertilizer company, met an Iranian mail-order bride, and bought plane tickets at the last minute. This whole scenario puts a bit of a damper on an otherwise light-hearted film.
Yes Man is an enjoyable romantic comedy with a good deal of laughs and a solid story. Jim Carrey is funny but not over the top and the supporting cast contributes to the fun as well.
Using an anamorphic widescreen transfer, the Warner engineers replicate the film’s 2.40:1 ratio image in vibrant colors, with hues bright, deep, and strong. If anything, though, the colors are a little too strong, being slightly more vivid than I see in real life. The definition is reasonably sharp and clear with what looks like a touch of edge enhancement.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio works well in the midrange, reproducing dialogue cleanly, and it sounds quite dynamic in the rock-band sequences, in the yes-man guru scene, and in a few action sequences. Dialogue is very crisp.
The extras are pretty funny. First up is “Downtime on the Set of Yes Man with Jim Carrey” (3:59), a quickie featurette of Carrey and his co-stars goofing off on-set, intercut with brief interview snippets of the star and his director. “Jim Carrey: Extreme Yes Man” (11:52) focuses on the stunts and the hairier situations that Carrey put himself into for the film. It’s an entertaining package, funnier than these “making-of” pieces tend to be, and includes some interesting tidbits (Carrey performed the film’s bungee jump himself, though Reed made sure to schedule it on the last day of shooting) and candid footage (including a set visit by Carrey’s daughter and his girlfriend Jenny McCarthy for the bungee jump sequence).
“Future Sounds: Munchausen By Proxy” (3:50) is a clever faux-profile of the band, ostensibly for a music TV show. It ain’t Spinal Tap, but it’s still pretty funny. Even better are the “Exclusive Munchausen By Proxy Music Videos,” which are somewhat misnamed–they’re actually full, extended performances of the songs seen in the film, so they’re more like extended scenes than music videos.
Carrey’s always good for a funny “Gag Reel” (5:34)
The extras conclude with twenty-five scene selections; a Bonus Digital Copy of the film compatible with iTunes and Windows Media; some trailers and promos at start-up; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages; French and Spanish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.
