Yes Man

Carl Allen (Jim Carey) is a selfish bastard who never wants to get involved, often ignores his friends (Bradley Cooper, Danny Masterson), and still mourns the loss of his ex-girlfriend (Molly Sims).

One day he runs into a former co-worker (John Michael Higgins) who convinces Carl to check out a Yes seminar run by a guru (Terrence Stamp) who teaches his followers to say yes to everything. Carl agrees and finds his life suddenly awesome. He parties with his friends, meets a new girl (Zooey Deschanel), improves his relationship with his boss (Rhys Darby), and generally gets a more positive outlook on life.

Of course this covenant of “Yes” also leads our protagonist down some bad roads (though not as numerous, nor humorous, as you’d might expect). These include accepting sex from a senior citizen, attending a Harry Potter theme party, and throwing his best friend’s fiancee (Sasha Alexander) a bridal shower. All of this leads to the eventual revelation and understanding you’d expect (after the trademark romcom third act break-up).

Yes Man is your basic romcom with an extra dose of Jim Carey zaniness thrown in. The romance itself works alright, until the film falls back on basic romantic comedy conventions, though the age differences do lead you to think of Carl as a bit of a cradle-robbing perv. The funniest moment in the film, however, does not come from Carey but from Stamp who runs barefoot full-speed down an aisle during a seminar giving us one of the few unexpected laughs of the film.

Is it worth the $10 ticket price? For die-hard fans of Carey’s, yes. The rest of you may want to wait to check it out DVD, or even better yet, cable.