Nope, I didn’t like it. Jim Carrey here looks tired and not really into it, as if he was thinking all the time ‘let’s get it over with this nonsense’. I’m sorry to admit that the only nice thing of this movie was Bradley Cooper in a support role, his only friend Peter, and he looked very very handsome. The “so handsome that it’s written destiny he must be an actor” kind of handsome. Also a lot younger, did they ever explained how they became such best friends that even if Carl keeps avoiding him Peter won’t leave him alone? The actors have 12 or 13 age gap, and honestly it shows.
I think a big problem of this movie is that they’re kind of copying Liar liar, the idea, the style, but things have changed and it’s just not possible.
Actually, I liked the ‘idea’ of this movie, what Terrence says makes a lot of sense in a way, meaning that you should not constantly say no to life, you should try saying yes and actually live a little. Easily said than done sometimes, but still, a right idea.
What I hated about this movie was the idea that you don’t live and don’t have fun if you’re not irresponsible and out of your mind. She rides her scooter like crazy, fast and dangerously, taking pictures while speeding, going zigzag, and it all seems fun when it goes well, until it doesn’t.
Some people used to blame videogames, but those are clearly fake, while these are real people using things everyone of us can use, making you believe that only if you do dangerous things like this you’re really living... well, people, kids have died trying to take pictures in dangerous positions, and suddenly it didn’t look that much fun, did it?
Also, he starts doing everything, and I’d like to know where he finds the time. He has a job,how can he have so much free time to do all those things? And after only a few lessons he speaks Korean like a native... everything but the yes-concept is just nonsense.
The story is:
Carl is divorced, bored at work, there’s nothing he likes, spends all his free time alone at home, avoiding his friends and colleagues, and bearing grudge towards his ex-wife. He always says no to everything, until one day someone he knew a long time ago tells him that his life changed after he attended a YesMan conference, or something. There’s this man, Terrence, a sort of spiritual guru, who preaches that you must say yes to life. Carl attends one, but is very reluctant, so Terrence tells him that he’s making a covenant, a pact with him and with himself, and if he breaks it, saying no to something, bad things will happen to him.
Of course, when you strongly believe that something bad will happen, it certainly will.
As he walks out a homeless man asks him for a ride, and that’s his first yes. He drives him for quite a while, gives him a lot of money, then he meets a girl who gives him a ride on her scooter and then gives him a kiss. This last part makes him feel more positive towards this ‘yes’-business, and he starts saying yes to every strange email he gets, and to his boss too, and explains it to his friends. He goes to work on saturday, accepting to give people loans for every small idea they have, and his boss Norman says he’ll promote him.
After he explains it to Peter, he makes him buy for everyone and they get drunk, and when he kisses a big guy’s girl, the guy wants to beat him and Peter tries to help but he’s out of his mind and really drunk, but they finally manage to take him home. Next morning his neighbour, an elderly lady who always hits on him, offers to ‘repay him’ after he did some work in her house; that’s going too far for him and he says no, but then he falls down the stairs and a dog tries to bite him, so he thinks it’s all because of the pact he made with Terrence, and that he must never again say no or terrible things will happen, so he goes back to the lady, and kind of enjoys the moment apparently.
He starts saying yes to everything: an Harry Potter-themed party at Norman’s (by the way, when he wrapped himself in tape like he did in liar liar, it was rather creepy...)
he says yes to people who knock on his doors, at tv commercials, at every announcement he finds, so he takes guitar lessons, flying lessons, Korean lessons... he meets Allison again when he takes a flier from the man in the street that he used to avoid every day and goes to a club. There are only five or six people there and she ‘sings’. He meets her again, they talk while he walks her to her scooter, he says yes to wake up early to meet her, and also to stay out all night with his friends; he gets a date with a Persian woman from an online Persianwives site, and says yes to throwing a bridal shower for Peter’s girlfriend, brings Allison to Norman’s party and watches two HP movies there, drives her scooter, takes her to a big theatre at night (after jumping the fence ‘cause it was locked), and when they are found out, he runs when she calls him and stops when the guard tells him... then he gets called by the ‘big boss’ because of the many small loans he approved, and it turns out he won’t be fired but promoted. He talks to the Korean employee at the store (while figuring out the details for the bridal shower), and then sings to a man who wants to jump off a building, saving him; when he meets his ex-wife he’s now relaxed and cool, not obsessed anymore. Goes on a trip with Allison, on the first flight available, so to Lincoln, Nebraska. They visit a phone museum, go shooting, attend a football match, visit a factory where they explain how they prepare chickens, or something, but then she asks him to move in together. He’s very quick in telling her that he loves her too, but he’s clearly lying when he says yes to moving in together. At the airport, they are stopped by security, he’s suspected of being a terrorist because of his weird behaviour. He calls his attorney and Peter shows up with Terrence book, and explains the yes-business, that he ‘must’ say yes to everything.
Allison learns about that for the first time and is very much shocked, because now thinks he didn’t really want to do all those things but did because he had to say yes. She’s right of course; incidentally he fell in love, but that’s exactly how it started.
He misses her a lot; he goes to her club, she says he can go jump off a bridge, and he goes bungee-jumping. As part of his new job, he’s required to fire people and Norman is one of them, and he cries a lot “dressed” like in the 300 movie.
He forgets about the bridal thing, so he has to improvise and surprises the a party full of people... kinda random people, since he called everyone he knows, ex-wife with boyfriend too.
Carl introduces Soo-Mi to Norman. He keeps calling Allison but she never answers. When Peter asks him to go out, now he always says yes, while at the beginning of the movie he always said no; he wants to, but also he feels like he has to, because of the pact. When his ex-wife calls him and throws herself at him, this time he says no. He’s scared to death of the consequences, and suddenly hides in Terrence’s car in order to talk to him, but Carl scares him jumping out of nowhere while he’s driving and they have an accident. At the hospital, when they wake up, Carl begs Terrence to free him of the covenant, and Terrence tells him that he wasn’t serious, that there is no covenant. He believes in the idea, and that was a way to save the situation at the conference and also to get him started on the yes-thing, so that little by little he would start saying yes because he wants to and not because he has to.
He runs out still wearing the hospital gown, borrowing a Ducati, riding fast, even on the sidewalk, nude butt in the wind, and he hurries to Allison to tell her that he really wants to be with her, not live together but he does love her. She doesn’t even ask why he’s dressed like that, but they make peace.
It ends with them doing charity work, bringing lots and lots of clothes for auction, Carl just went outside Terrence’s conference asking yes-people to give him their clothes, so Terrence finds himself in a room filled with naked people... I mean, totally naked, is Carl putting for sale their used underwear? Gross.
During the credits, Carl and Allison go down the street with some strange roller-blades-suits... managing not to kill themselves, because it’s a movie and things are fake and always go as planned. In real life, two totally unprepared like them would have crashed at the first turn..
ITA yes man - una parola può cambiare tutto
Carl-Jim Carrey
Peter-Bradley Cooper
Terrence-Terence Stamp
Allison-Zooey Deschanel
Tillie-Fionnula Flanagan
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