The most powerful three-letter word in the English language!

Rating: 8/10 (17 January 2009)

OK, I have to tell you a true story, you're not gonna believe this. I tried this "yes" thing a couple years ago, in late 2006. The first thing I did was accept an offer to teach English in China (I'm still here), then I was invited into dozens of Chinese homes, I agreed to an idea to ride a bicycle from my city to Beijing (about 600 miles), I was thereafter featured in the local newspaper, and through no real talent of my own I made an appearance on national Chinese television giving an interview and singing a song in Chinese.
It hasn't all been fun and games though. I also accepted a casual invitation from someone I had known for about two hours to visit a nearby city which turned out to be forbidden to foreigners, so I was arrested as a spy and questioned in a Communist prison for 7 hours. Try it!
Anyway, I was moved to tell you that story, because you would be surprised at how real the possibility is that the word 'yes' can actually change your life. It's so easy to get stuck in a comfortable rut and just stay there. Not that there is anything wrong with that, a comfortable rut is certainly better than a lifetime of hardship, but I'm going to go ahead and suggest that saying yes for a while is probably going to make the ride a little more interesting.
Jim Carrey stars as Carl Allen, a regular guy with a regular job who really just wants to be left alone. He turns down invitations from his friends to go out on the town, he refuses offers and opportunities and invitations left and right, preferring the comfort of his own sofa and a rented video or two. And I can't say I blame him. There are few things as appealing to me as an evening in my apartment by myself watching whatever movie I might want to watch. Even two years after the word 'yes' has landed me in central eastern China, you would be amazed at how often I enjoy that particular situation.
Complicating matters is the fact that Carl's wife left him, badly injuring not only his pride but his self0image and possibly even his mental stability. Not only does he reject chances to interact with friends and family, but he's also a loan agent at a major bank, so he says no for a living!
He attends a YES seminar, where he learns that saying yes to everything can have brilliant affects on his life, whereas saying no could cause the sky to fall on his head. There is a crucial (and tasteless) scene where he is put into a position where he is forced to say no, and all hell breaks predictably loose.
Yes Man is definitely a light-hearted and goofy comedy, but there is a thread of reality that permeates it and really makes you think that it's saying something real, which is something that is generally only true of the best Jim Carrey movies, like The Truman Show or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's not at the same level as those movies, but there is something here that really might make your life a little more interesting, and when was the last time you ever saw a movie with the potential to do that?
"The world is a playground. You know that when you're a kid, but somewhere along the way everyone forgets it."