Issue Date: May 10, 2009
"Yes Man"
Jim Carrey's comedy about positive thinking gets a "maybe" from the guy who wrote the book on saying no.
Zooey Deschanel and Jim Carrey in "Yes Man," out on DVD
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The Plot: Following his devastating divorce, Carl (Jim Carrey) decides that saying "no" to everything is the best way to ward off further psychological harm. But after a motivational guru (Terence Stamp) instructs Carl to make "yes" his mantra, he manages to hook up with a cute musician (Zooey Deschanel) and enjoys life to its fullest -- until he learns that all decisions aren't meant to be so clear-cut.
Our Insider: Greg Cootsona, pastor at Bidwell Presbyterian Church in Chico, Calif., is also the author of the new self-help guide "Say Yes to No." The book takes well-known MBA strategies for setting priorities and goals in the business world and applies them to personal growth.
OVERVIEW "The takeaway of the film is a positive message: To make a 'yes' resonate more, you have to have some 'no's' surrounding it in life and work and love. There's a key moment when both Carl and his guru end up in the hospital together, and Carl is told that his covenant to say 'yes' was merely to open him up a bit but that he should really only say it when his heart tells him to. In other words, saying 'yes' shouldn't be an empty gesture."
EEK!-ONOMICS "Carrey plays a bank loan officer whose new, upbeat attitude causes him to approve everybody's loan applications. In light of recent financial news, viewers probably will question whether giving loans to people without any collateral (including a woman who bakes cakes that look like movie stars, and a man who wants to buy a motorcycle) would be a good thing."
RANDOM ACTS OF YES-NESS "There's a montage early on in which Carl agrees to take flying lessons and Korean language classes, learns how to play guitar and even signs on to an Iranian mail-order bridal website. Unfortunately, the selection seems too obvious; every element in this montage is just a setup for later scenes. All of these yeses carried the plot forward, but not the character."
DIFFERENT PATHS "I wrote my book after a medical scare, but some parallels do exist between my journey and Carrey's character. What's different is the cumulative effect of saying yes and our respective stages of life: I'm married with two children, and Carl is divorced and childless. The real similarities come at the end of the movie, when Carl finally understands the problems in saying 'yes.' That's where I begin." W -- Jeffrey Ressner
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