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The Americanization of Wallace's story is okay where it sticks relatively close to the original book. The protagonist's extreme discouragement due to loss of a love and a number of other similarities between Carl Allen and Danny Wallace are all fine and good, but it's Allen's indoctrination into the power of Yes that robs the film of that which makes the book so charming. Wallace's desire to follow the call of the Yes for an entire year is entirely self-induced, giving him a kind of fascinating vulnerability that Carrey lacks in the role of Allen. By merely following the teachings of a self-help guru like a herd of others, Allen lacks the wild, untested self-motivation Wallace exhibits in the book.

Rather than confine itself to the implications of the Yes doctrine, the film sets its sites on delivering a pretty standard romantic comedy story. It does a pretty good job of delivering a pretty good story. Following his first Yes excursion, Allen is stranded in the hills having run out of gas taking a homeless person into a park of some sort. Inevitably reaching the gas station, he meets a quirky, attractive artist woman played by Zooey Deschanel, thus setting the two on a vary obvious path towards the inevitable fight and reconciliation that usually develops in a Hollywood romance. The story is, of course, populated by the types of ancillary characters that usually populate a Hollywood romance. There's enough in the film that separates it from the usual romantic comedy to make it a relatively novel experience, but this is far from a revolutionary work of popular cinema.

The Verdict

Danny Wallace's book would make for a good film. . . if it were a film featuring Danny Wallace. His unique kind of pseudo-intellectual humor is best delivered by him and him alone. The adaptation ends up being a Hollywood film that is inspired by the general premise of the book without following its plot in any but the most basic and fundamental ways. The overall plot arc is maintained without any of the flavor that made the book so unique. As a standalone romantic comedy, the Yes Man is fun, but lacks enough appeal to make it very far beyond opening week. If Wallace is to become the kind of star in the US that he is in the UK, it will have to be on his own terms with his own script both behind AND in front of the camera.

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