Straight from DVD: Yes Man

Yes Man, Jim Carrey’s return to his comic roots, rates as a definite maybe.

Featuring a solid and talented cast, Carrey and sidekicks Bradley Cooper, Zooey Deschanel and Rhys Darby somehow make a meddling and mediocre script watchable. A film with an interesting premise, simplified to base standards, then tied to the taunting antics of Carrey, who reprises his role as Jimmy Stewart-meets-Jerry Lewis.

Carrey plays Carl Allen. Carl just suffered through a divorce. Instead of moving on with his life, he lives like a hermit, making weekend excursions to the video store instead of meeting and sharing with Cooper and company, who soon resent Carl for his introverted ways. After a funny nightmare scene, featuring Cooper and Carrey doing his best physical schtick, Carl has had enough and attends a New Age gurus motivational speech on a whim and at the insistence of a friend.

Carl encounters the guru, played memorably by the interminable Terence Stamp. After a confrontation, Carl is on his way.

The plot is forgotten and we’re soon reacting to Carrey, who can’t say no to anything without his luck suddenly changing for the worse, this include sexual exploits with an octogenarian, bungee jumping, all-night raves and a risible confrontation with a man at a bar. Karma and fate pushes him to say “yes” but this is never explained. There are no real consequences for his behavior, including malfeasance at work, and all is excused. All predictable and unrealistic, but Carrey and the rest are likable, so we don’t mind the journey.

The plot simplifies the whole “yes” premise to a fault. All things are worked out by the uttering of the Y-word. Carl also becomes a bit self-absorbed as he meanders his way through his new direction in life and never does face the consequences. The feel-good New Agey crap isn’t for everyone, especially those with real problems – unlike Carl, whose disinterest in work leads to no repercussions, and whose only real problem is himself. Things really turn farcical with Carl’s antics somehow leading him to a terrorist watch list. The moment is stiff, contrived and a desperate move to turn the story around. It nearly kills the movie, but the plot wasn’t what kept us interested anyway.

The film has a gentle lesson. Setting up a party, Carl invites all his new-found friends from his recent exploits. It’s a memorable scene of a full bar, thanks to Carl finally offering himself up to the world. It’s a scene that stuck with me and reminded of a friend’s recent funeral, which was attended by well over a few hundred people. It was an instance that made me think of the chances one has to touch those around them and how you can never have too many friends. For those of a shy nature, like myself, it’s an important lesson in living life.

Zooey Deschanel, the cult favorite, was paired with Carrey for reasons easy to surmise. Carrey with his comic goofiness, Deschanel with her cute and approachable geek-girl persona. Carrey is playing very young here, as Deschanel is 20 years his junior. The rest of the cast and the group of friends are younger. Strange, but what to do with comics who hit 50?

Cooper plays it straight as the lawyer/friend. All that charisma as the pretty boy partier in The Hangover is not on display. Darby is fun as the foreign boss who is dying to befriend Carl. Darby’s uber-geeky sugary tone is fun and done in just the right dose.

Not typical Carrey, he plays it more straight but allows a few moments of physical inanity, including some fun with the tape dispenser at work.

How much longer Carrey can continue to play this Lewis everyman comic gimmick remains to be seen. He’s had varying results, sometimes it’s gold with The Truman Show or Liar, Liar, other times it bottoms out with Bruce Almightly. Yes Man lands somewhere in the middle.

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