Likable, well-intentioned – but shockingly unfunny – Peyton Reed’s Yes Man represents a kind of amalgamation of Jim Carrey comedies Fun with Dick and Jane, Bruce Almighty, and, mostly, Liar, Liar.
In that last film, he played a lawyer who couldn’t tell a lie; here, he plays a loan officer who can’t say ‘no’. That’s not exactly true – he can and frequently does say ‘no’ during the course of the film – but you get the gist.
Sounds good, right? Well, Carrey plays Carl Allen, a hopelessly depressed bank employee who won’t answer the phone, go out with his friends, or come to his boss’s parties.
Then he attends a self-help seminar led by Terrence Bundley (Terence Stamp), whose advice is to say ‘yes’ to everything. Bundley singles Carl out in the audience, gets him to reluctantly say ‘yes’ a couple times, and then Carl consciously makes a decision to start to say ‘yes’ to everything that comes his way, a decision that is reinforced by the couple times he says ‘no’ and bad things start to happen.
And you know what? His life improves, even when he does stuff that he doesn’t want to do, like give all his money to a bum. He meets a nice girl (Zooey Deschanel), goes out with his friends and becomes the life of the party, and makes good with his boss – and genuinely enjoys himself doing so. He gives out loans to everyone that comes his way, and gets rewarded with a promotion.
Here’s the problem: Liar, Liar was funny because Carrey played a character who wanted to lie, but couldn’t because of some mystical force, and the actor milked that situation for every last drop of physical comedy. In Yes Man, Carrey plays a guy who consciously makes a decision to say ‘yes’, (eventually) enjoys doing it, and his life becomes all the better for it.
Where are the laughs in that? Few and far between. Forget laughs, where’s the story tension? There isn’t any, until one of the characters finds out Carl is forcing himself to say ‘yes’, and by then, it’s too little, too late.
Carrey is surprisingly restrained here, and ironically, only funny in his brief stint as the satiric, depressed, reclusive Carl as opposed to the Yes Man he becomes.
Supporting cast is mostly bland, though there’s some terrific work by Rhys Darby (in his film debut) as Carrey’s boss. I chuckled here and there at this comedy (love the Mickey Rourke cake, and the Billy Jack reference was a real winner) but otherwise Yes Man is a tough sit that ultimately turns depressing.
Carl’s position as a loan officer who can’t say ‘no’ is given some unintended weight by the current financial crisis.
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