Yes Man is a comedy starring funnyman, Jim Carrey. The movie is based on the true story and 2005 book "The Yes Man" by British humorist Danny Wallace. Wallace has a cameo in the film.
SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Jim Carrey in "Yes Man"
Carl Allen (Jim Carrey) is a junior loan officer with very low self esteems after his ex-wife, Stephanie (Molly Sims) divorces him. Almost every answer from him is a certain "no" until he meets his old pal, Nick (John Michael Higgins) who has traveled the world. Nick invites Carl to a motivational seminar by Terrence Bundley and after going through many unfortunate series of events, Carl decides to give the seminar a try. The motivator, Terrence Bundley (Terence Stamp) manages to convince Carl and has made a covenant with him that he will say "yes" to everything from now onwards.
Through a series of event after the seminar, Carl meets Allison (Zooey Deschanel), a beautiful woman who gives him a ride to his car, which has no gas from the gas station. And by saying "yes" to many things at work, Carl is also promoted and given a raise in the bank. Carl also decides to go to a small gig through a piece of flyer distributed by a man outside the bar which he used to reject incessantly. There, he realizes Allison is the lead singer of "Munchausen by Proxy". He also learns that she does this thing called "jogging photography" in the early morning and decides to join her. However, when his friend calls him to join him at the bar for an all-night drinking, he accepts since he does not want to break the covenant. He ends up still high when he joins Allison for the "jogging photography" the next morning.
As Carl and Allison’s relationship progresses, they travel around the States by going to the airport and buy the plane tickets spontaneously without knowing where the destination is. Carl also manages to learn how to fly a plane, play a guitar and Korean language which proves to be useful at the time he needs it to save a man from jumping off a building and when he talks to a lonely Korean wedding planner staff called Soo-Mi. At work, Carl’s get promoted to the Corporate while his manager loses his job due to the closure of a few of the bank branches.
When the FBI arrests Carl out of suspicion from a series of events that have happened including buying air tickets spontaneously, taking flight lessons, dating a Persian woman and learning Korean — all which have made the FBI becomes questioning whether Carl is a terrorist. Carl’s lawyer and his best friend, Peter (Bradley Cooper) manages to convince the FBI and let both Carl and Allison off the hook. However, Allison learns that Carl has been saying "yes" to almost everything just because he didn’t want to break the covenant and she becomes upset and leaves him.
Carl’s ex-wife calls Carl when her boyfriend dumps her but Carl refuses to get back together with Stephanie.
After appearing in Terrence’s (the motivational speaker) car out of nowhere in order to ask him to break the covenant, they both ends up in the hospital when Terrence’s car crashes. After finding out the truth that the covenant is just a cover-up and saying "yes" is all up to an individual, Carl wastes no time as he borrows Lee’s Ducati (whose loan he has approved earlier) and rides to Allison’s "jogging photography" class to win her back. Make sure you stay back when the credits appear at the end of the film as Carl and Allison go for buggy rollin down a hill.
Overall, Yes Man is a funny film and a pretty good one. Jim Carrey gave a solid performance and this is one of the best since Liar Liar back in 1997. I would definitely say "yes" if I have another chance to watch this movie for the second time.
My ratings: 8 out of 10.
Popularity: 1%
