For all the rubbery mugging Jim Carrey does in Yes Man, it's actually the least he's stretched in years.
Consider Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Fun with Dick and Jane -- two films that, despite their flaws, hinted at a more grounded, less cartoonish Carrey as he neared middle age.
Even if he never managed to transition from shtick to seriousness the way Tom Hanks has, at least it revealed Carrey's ambitions were as elastic as his limbs.
Besides, who wants to watch a 46-year-old make Silly Putty faces for two hours?
How you answer that question, in fact, is a pretty good indicator of how much you will enjoy/loathe Yes Man.
A retreat to the brand of manic, plastic escapades he toplined in the 1990s, it most closely resembles Liar, Liar, which cast him as a duplicitous lawyer forced to tell the truth for a day.
Here, as a sad-sack who decides to say "yes" to every opportunity that crosses his path, the results may be more measured, but they're no less an excuse for Carrey to act wacky.
As a result, the movie itself is a comedic anachronism, out of step with this post-Judd Apatow world. All that's missing is Carrey talking out of his anus -- and honestly, I can't imagine the sheer force of will it must have required for him to resist the urge to bend over.
Carrey plays Carl Allen, a droopy bank loans officer who's become a glass-half-empty recluse in the aftermath of a divorce. His way of thinking, though, gets rewired when he attends a self-help seminar that espouses the power of saying "yes."
Suddenly Carl is agreeing to everything and binging on life. Who knew, for example, that by giving a homeless man a lift and then all the money in your wallet, you just might end up hooking up with a free-spirited hottie such as Zooey Deschanel?
Even better, she's a snug fit for Carl's spanking-new anything-goes lifestyle and their romance ping-pongs from one spontaneous act of zaniness to another.
One day they're flying to Nebraska for no reason other than it exists (the same reason that brings most visitors to Nebraska), the next they're participating in some life-threatening extreme sport.
And as the film becomes increasingly episodic, Carl also gets to save a man from committing suicide (improbably by playing a Third Eye Blind song) and offer, um, companionship to the elderly but randy woman who lives next door.
The "yes" mania even spills into his work when he begins approving a plethora of questionable loans. That this too results in good things for Carl is maybe the hardest of all to swallow, considering the current U.S. mortgage debacle.
That said, some of his dubious decisions do come back to haunt Carl -- such as his responding in the affirmative to an online ad offering a Persian bride -- but mostly any blowback proves as benign as the movie itself.
As for the supporting cast, Deschanel, although 18 years younger than Carrey, proves a convincing female foil while Rhys Darby of HBO's Flight of the Conchords makes an impression as Carl's dweeby boss.
So is it a "Yes" to Yes Man? How about a firm yet uncommitted "maybe"?
(This film is rated PG)
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