Is it just me, or has it been awhile since Jim Carrey has done a “Jim Carrey” type comedy? You know, the kind where he gets to make all kinds of ridiculous faces and voices. Well, apparently he thought so too, because Yes Man is a return to his original star making comic form.
Yes Man finds Carrey playing a depressed, recently divorced bank loan officer. He avoids his friends. He has little inspiration to do anything but sit at home and watch movies alone. One day he runs into an old friend who takes him to an inspirational speaker and he decides to give the speakers mantra of saying, "Yes" to everything a try.
This of course leads to plenty of opportunities for Carrey to act up and entertain. “I do want to take guitar lessons. I do want to learn how to fly. Yes, I would like to learn Korean.” His new look at life also lets him fall in love and make friends with his nerdy British boss. But there is also the horny old neighbor lady and the bum who needs a ride that lead to comic, as well as uncomfortable, situations.
The lesson of the movie being that life is a risk, but you are not really living unless you get out there and face the good as well as the bad. Spontaneity is the spice of life. Where as this movie tries to say something encouraging, the whole plot seems a bit of a retread of Liar Liar, in which Carrey plays a man forced to tell the truth.
The parts where he starts to give high risk loans to everyone seems particularly topical, as the recent bailout of Wall Street was partially due to giving loans to folks who could not pay them back. Thankfully though, the movie stays clear of politics, leaving Carrey to do what he does best. However, the whole movie seems a bit like a throwaway film he whipped together to remind his fans that he still can make us laugh.
