Movie Review: Yes Man

Jim Carrey broke in to mainstream super stardom as the bumbling pet detective, Ace Ventura. With his rubberface and perfect delivery, Carrey quickly established himself as a slapstick-esque comedian. After two Ace Ventura movies, Carrey began to resist being typecast as a “stupid-humor” type of actor. I can imagine that he probably assumed no one would ever take him serious as an actor while he was running around in a tutu pretending to be a mentally-ill football player, and rightly so. However, his attempt to break out of this mold met with little success as his roles in Number 23, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and the Majestic never came close to the popularity of his comedic movies (Liar, Liar and Bruce Almighty).

In Carrey’s newest movie, Yes Man, I believe he has finally found a happy medium between his two extremes. I’ll admit that I believed this movie would be nothing more than a poor man’s Liar, Liar, but I could not have been more off base. Yes Man finds Carrey playing the role of Carl Allen, a depressed loan officer that passes on every opportunity that comes his way in life. A random encounter with a friend from his past brings Carl to a seminar about the power of saying “yes” and accepting each set of circumstances that comes your way.

At this point I felt the film was going to go the way of Shallow Hal and have Carl brainwashed, but I was relieved to find that Carl would make all these “yes” choices of his own volition. The movie follows his life as he finds that the world has so much more to offer than watching rented movies alone on your couch. Through a chance adventure, Carl ends up meeting Allison (played by the very talented Zooey Deschanel). Allison acts as a further catalyst for Carl’s seemingly random life. From taking Korean classes to flying out to Lincoln, Nebraska on a whim, Allison falls deeply in love with his spontaneity.

I won’t spoil the ending, but suffice it to say that it deals with the ability of humans to make their own decisions and the results of said decisions. I can’t say enough about Carrey’s superb acting in this film. Alongside Deschanel, Carrey’s natural acting prowess shines through to make Yes Man one of the best movies of a young 2009. In fact, the only part of the entire movie I disliked was the Red Bull scene shown in the movie trailer as Carrey comes across as overbearing and a tad childish. However, director Peyton Reed found himself a winner with this one and I look forward to seeing what he conjures up next.

-Chad 2