YES MAN [PG-13]
review by Padraic Maroney

Jim Carrey had instant stardom once he leapt onto the big screen with “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.” His catered to the same slapstick-happy audience with another couple of films before trying to go the Tom Hanks route and become bankable and respected in Hollywood. En route, he began to lose his way.

Over the last decade, Carrey went from a guaranteed box office king to a spotty record of hit and miss comedic and dramatic roles. With the exception of “The Truman Show,” the actor has never really gotten his bearings on dramatic films. His comedic roles went from classic films to middling. Lloyd Christmas from “Dumb & Dumber” became Count Olaf in the “Lemony Snicket” film. “Ace Ventura” morphed into the remake of “Fun With Dick And Jane.” Now, though, we can all take heart in knowing that Carrey may have found his way back with Yes Man, which probably not coincidentally resembles at least a little one of his signature films, “Liar Liar.”

Perhaps it’s because Carrey has been going through the same journey as his “Yes Man” character that the actor can fully commit to the role. Since his divorce, Carl (Carrey) has become cynical, sarcastic and unwilling to live his life. He is going nowhere fast — that is until he finds out the power of saying “yes.” Accustomed to always denying people, and even his friends, Carl takes the advice to go to a seminar that teaches you the way of saying yes. By saying yes good things will happen for in your life, says Guru Terrence Bundley (Terence Stamp). The more he says yes, the happier and more jovial Carl becomes.

Based on the memoir by Danny Wallace, who took on the challenge of saying yes for a year after an encounter with a stranger, the film takes the basic premise and tweaks the idea. The plot is flawed the most in that basic premise. Carl does just answers everything with a blanket yes without hesitation. Human nature would keep us from always saying it, though the film does a good job of trying to cover up this fact, as well as act as negative reinforcement, by having bad things happen whenever he says no.

With his merry band of friends, Carl’s problem is made worse. They try to break him by making him agree to a compounding list of requests. A lesser man would have cracked, but one of the problems the film has is that Carl doesn’t even blink before agreeing to their demands — a list that includes planning a fiancée’s wedding shower, doing laundry, and even going to regularly scheduled themed costume parties. Seeing such acts done so easily causes one to question whether he should see a therapist rather than just say yes to everything.

“Yes Man” has moments of laugh-out-loud comedic bits reminiscent of classic Jim Carrey movies that we haven’t seen him do right onscreen for sometime. Rather than resorting back to his schoolboy antics (which involved mocking the handicapped with the Wayanses and talking through his butt), the rubberfaced actor has finally found a mature role that works for his skill set. Playing closer to “Liar Liar” than “Dumb & Dumber,” Carrey has refound his comedic footing with this film.

Doe-eyed Zooey Deschanel is delightfully off-center as Allison, the film’s prerequisite love interest. Despite how young looking the 46-year-old Carrey looks, it is a little awkward seeing him paired with the 28-year-old actress. This may be another leap of faith, however, it’s easier to accept Carl’s rally against human nature to quit cold turkey on saying no than to understand how these two are getting together.

A lapse in logic like this is nothing new to director Peyton Reed, who has previously directed “The Break-Up” and turned awkward moments into uproarious laughter. With Deschanel anchoring the romantic aspects of the film, the casting may be awkward but the plot is not. Reed also helps by maneuvering the film around these somewhat problematic questions by keeping the pace of the film moving quickly. “Yes Man” is constantly moving forward so that we aren’t allowed much time to dwell on what just happened. Instead, we get to relish how good it is to see Carrey returning to his roots.•••

Padraic Maroney is a regular contributor to the national network EDGE.