Yes Man (film)

Plot

Bank loan officer Carl Allen (Jim Carrey) has become withdrawn since his divorce from ex-wife Stephanie. He has an increasingly negative outlook on his life and routinely ignores his friends Pete (Bradley Cooper) and Rooney (Danny Masterson). An old colleague suggests that he goes to a motivational "Yes!" seminar with him, which encourages its attendants to seize the opportunity to say "Yes!". Carl attends and meets inspirational guru Terrence Bundley (Terence Stamp). Bundley publicly forces a reluctant Carl to promise to answer "Yes!" to every opportunity, request, or invitation that presents itself.

Later, Carl says yes to a homeless mans request and is stranded in Elysian Park. Disillusioned, he hikes to a gas station where he meets Allison (Zooey Deschanel), an unorthodox young woman. She gives him a ride back to his car on her scooter and kisses him before leaving. After this positive experience, Carl feels more optimistic about saying yes. However, he refuses oral sex from his elderly neighbor Tillie (Fionnula Flanagan), and then falls down the stairs and is nearly attacked by a dog. Seeing the repercussions of saying no, he goes back to Tillie.

Carl starts to seize every opportunity that comes his way. He renews his friendships with Pete and Rooney; builds a bond with his boss, Norman; assists Petes fiancee, Lucy (Sasha Alexander), with her bridal shower; attends Korean language classes; and much more. He earns a corporate promotion at work and, making use of his guitar lessons, plays Third Eye Blinds song "Jumper" to persuade a man not to commit suicide. Accepting a band flyer outside of a coffee shop, he sees an idiosyncratic band called Munchausen by Proxy; the lead singer is Allison. He is charmed by her quirkiness; she is charmed by his spontaneity and the two begin dating.

Carl and Allison meet at the airport for a spontaneous weekend excursion. Having decided to take the first plane out of town, regardless of its destination, they end up in Lincoln, Nebraska, where they bond more. Allison asks Carl to move in with her and he hesitantly agrees. While checking in for the return flight, Carl and Allison are detained by FBI agents who have profiled him as a potential terrorist because he has taken flying lessons, studied Korean, approved a loan to a fertilizer company, met an Iranian, and bought plane tickets at the last minute. Pete, his attorney, travels to Nebraska to explain Carls odd habits, lessons, and decisions. As she finds out about Carls motivational covenant, Allison begins to doubt whether his commitment to her was ever sincere. Deciding that she can no longer trust him, Allison leaves Carl and refuses to return his phone calls.

Carls life takes a turn for the worse and he almost forgets about Lucys shower. He manages to arrange a major surprise shower, set his friend Norm up with Soo-Mi (Vivian Bang), a Korean girl, and Rooney with Tillie. After the party, Carl receives a tearful phone call from Stephanie, whose new boyfriend has walked out on her. When Carl goes to Stephanies apartment to comfort her, she kisses him and asks him to spend the night with her. After Carl emphatically says no, his luck takes a turn for the worse and he decides to end his commitment to the covenant.

Carl goes to the convention center and hides in the backseat of Terrences convertible so that he can beg to be released from the covenant. Carl emerges as Terrence drives off, and an oncoming vehicle collides with Terrence. The two are taken to a hospital. After Carl recovers consciousness, Terrence tells Carl that there was no covenant. The starting point was merely to open Carls mind to other possibilities, not to permanently take away his ability to say no if he needed to. Freed from this restraint, Carl finds Allison teaching a sports-photography lesson and admits that he is not ready to move in with her just yet, but that he genuinely loves her, and they reconcile with a kiss as Allisons students take pictures.

Production

Yes Man is based on a memoir of the same name by British humourist Danny Wallace. The book tells of the 6-month period in which he committed himself to saying Yes to everything based on a brief conversation with a stranger he met on the bus. Danny Wallace also has a cameo in the film, in the final bar-scene of the movie, in which he is speaking to someone behind Danny Masterson.

Jim Carrey declined an upfront salary for his role in the film. He was instead paid 36.2% of the films gross after its production and marketing costs were recovered.

During shooting of a scene where Carreys character bungee jumps off a bridge, Carrey interrupted and asked to do the stunt himself. Carrey stated to the stunt double that he intended to do it in one take. When he jumps off, he is seen taking out a cell phone for the scene.

While shooting the scene in the bar where Carreys character turns around into a waitress and falls flat on his back, Carrey executed the stunt incorrectly and fell to the floor harder than he expected, breaking three ribs in the process.

Carrey also mastered basic Korean for a scene. A language coach was hired to help Carrey learn the language accurately. This was the same process for the scenes in which Carreys character learns to play the guitar; Carrey tried to play during the years of his childhood, but "quit before ever learning a chord". Carrey said in an interview with HBO: "Just learning the basic chords was maybe the most challenging part of any movie Ive worked on in my career. Peyton [Reed] even joked about the guitar part being dubbed, or just cut altogether." Reed played the song "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind, which had a high number of digital downloads after the films theatrical release. After the final date of filming, Carrey "retired" his set guitar, and Deschanel kept it. When asked about this, Carrey said: "Ill never need that, or any guitar ever again; guitar is not for me! Never has been, never will be!"

The films soundtrack features original music by Munchausen by Proxy, a fictional band named after the Munchausen syndrome by proxy (a psychological disorder). In the film, the band consists of actress Deschanel on lead vocals and the San Francisco-based all-girl band Von Iva, a trio of vocals, keyboards and drums. Von Ivas members collaborated with Deschanel, a singer-songwriter and one half of the duo She & Him, on writing and recording the bands songs for the film. Von Iva got the part of the fictional ensemble in the film after the movies music supervisor, Jonathan Karp, saw the cover of their CD in Amoeba in Hollywood. For the DVD/Blu-ray release of the film, Deschanel and Von Iva filmed a spoof MTV music show-style documentary on the band for which they filmed mock music videos for several of the songs; the home video release also includes full-length performances by the group that were not included in the film.

The soundtrack also features nine songs by Eels, including a brand-new song entitled "Man Up".

The introduction music at the beginning of the movie from Carreys ringtone comes from the song "Separate Ways" by Journey. It is also featured when Carreys character bails out from the hospital to catch the joggography at 6 am.

Critical reception

Yes Man generated mixed reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 46%, based on 151 reviews, with an average rating of 5.3. The sites consensus reads, "Jim Carreys comic convulsions are the only bright spots in this otherwise dim and predictable comedy." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 46 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Many critics thought that its plot was too similar to Carreys 1997 work, Liar Liar.

In his review for The Miami Herald, Rene Rodriguez wrote, "Yes Man is fine as far as Jim Carrey comedies go, but its even better as a love story that just happens to make you laugh," while Kyle Smith of The New York Post countered in his review that, "The first time I saw Yes Man, I thought the concept was getting kind of stale toward the end. As it turns out, that was only the trailer." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times gave the film 2 stars out of 4.

Box office

Despite the mixed critical reception, the film opened No. 1 in its first weekend at the US box office with $18.3 million, and went straight to the top of the UK box office in its first weekend after release.

To date, the film has taken in more than $220 million worldwide, surpassing Jim Carreys previous comedy Fun with Dick and Jane but falling short of his 2003 film Bruce Almighty.

Accolades

Home media

The DVD and Blu-ray were released on April 7, 2009. Customers have the option of the single-disc edition and the 2 disc edition titled the "Ultimately Yes!" edition.