By: Patrick
Having recently found out about the 2008 movie, Yes Man, starring Jim Carrey in which he says ‘yes’ to all propositions that come his way, I started scheming about writing the script for the sequel to this movie with a view to improving upon the original. Having not managed to watch the original due to lack of time or will, I got the jist of it from the plot synopsis on wikipedia. As a result of saying ‘yes’ to everything, Carrey’s character engages in many delightful and unpredictable activities, including taking Korean classes, joining a Persian dating website, and receiving oral sex from an elderly neighbour. Indeed, Carrey’s initially rather downbeat character appears transformed by the end of the movie through the gift of saying ‘yes’ to a lot of people. I imagine that this movie must have inspired a number of people to try and live like Carl Allen (Carrey’s character), uninhibited by the limitations and boundaries of the word ‘no’. It seems to be unlikely that this would be a useful long-term move and is perhaps one that left some people feeling slightly disappointed or in jail. While most sequels are fairly weak derivatives of the initial feature, I decided that my script would explore a different angle to the whole ‘yes’ scenario. It started with Carl Allen back on the ‘yes’ train after the breakdown of the marriage that ended the first instalment of the Yes Man franchise (it is not stated what caused the relationship breakdown and subsequent divorce, but one may assume that Allen found that marriage involved too many enforced uses of the word ‘no’, hence limiting his unfettered freedom). Back out in the world with a view to saying ‘yes’ a hell of a lot, Allen comes across a young woman sat on the pavement crying. He asks her what the matter is and she tells him that for many years she has been the sole carer for her elderly mother who has both Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. She begs him to take over the care of her mother in order to protect her sanity and give her a chance to swan off round the world for a bit. Allen reluctantly is forced to say ‘yes’ and the movie involves the development of the relationship between him and the old woman (who I named Betty) through Allen’s unavoidable duty of care that takes up most of his life to the extent that even when he has free time he is too tired to say ‘yes’ to other projects. During the course of the movie, Allen realizes that all his life he has struggled to commit to anything and that his need for unfettered freedom has come at the cost of him not developing a single meaningful relationship or carrying out a single act that may have impacted on his freedom to say ‘yes’ to anything that came his way. After much crying and soul-searching, Allen turns his back on his old ways and devotes his life to actually being something like a useful and moral citizen, who takes pride in refusing stupid or meaningless diversions from exploring the deeper truths of his existence as a human. The tone of the movie is pious and didactic. I have yet to receive an answer from Warner Brother’s Pictures, who distributed the original movie.