Yes (2005)

This film is like watching writer/director Sally Potter masturbate. Most people will be almost instantly repelled. A few will be somewhat perversely attracted, but after 10 minutes even those few will want her to finish up and move on to something else.Let me be up front with the two pieces of information that will conclusively let you know if this movie is anything with which you should bother. First, the two main characters don't have names. They're identified in the credits only as She and He. Other characters have names, just not them. Second, all the dialog is in verse. Yes, that's right. IT FRICKIN' RHYMES.Think about those two things for 30 seconds.Okay. The impression you now have in your mind is exactly what this movie is like. You also probably understand what I meant by near instantaneous repulsion and how those not repelled will quickly tire of it.The plot concerns She (Joan Allen), a middle aged American with pretensions of Irishness who's living a cold and sterile life in England with her distant husband Anthony (Sam Neill). She gets caught up with the swarthy He (Simon Abkarian), an Arab cook who used to be a doctor back in Beirut. You probably know what Joan Allen looks like. Imagine a Muslim Fabio, slightly shriveled with black hair and a porn stache and that's Simon Abkarian. That's not exactly a great couple to look at, is it?She and He meet, have their liaisons and inevitably break up, all the while spewing supposed profundities at each other in various pentameters. While that's going on, Anthony grooves to the blues in his living room and there's some completely unnecessary and oddly included stuff with Grace (Stephanie Leonidas), the daughter of She's best friend. Potter also utilizes a recurring gag of cleaning people looking knowingly into the camera and out at the audience. One cleaning woman even waxes endlessly about dirt as a sociological metaphor. Eventually, She's aunt is dragged out of the ether to deliver a too long soliloquy and then die, sending She to Cuba of all places while He heads back to Beirut. Will love reunited She and He? By that point in the film, I couldn't have given a tinker's dam. If these two characters had taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque and ended up in Eli Roth's Hostel, I would have cried tears of joy as they were graphically tortured to death.For the last half of this baloney, there were only two words that reverberated in my head like the voice of God. Those words were…just end. I wanted Yes to be over as badly as any experience I've ever had. There have been nights I've been hunched on top of the toilet, bowels twisting in painful constipation, hoping and praying for relief. That's how much I desperately wanted this movie to be done.Yes is filled with very long scenes of monologue and dialog which are more than competently performed, though nonetheless interminable. I can appreciate the actors must have delighted in being able to exercise their talents in a way not usually possible in a motion picture. Any pleasure for the audience, however, vanishes after about 10 minutes of hearing the rhyming beats of the script clanging against their ears.Yes is close to unbearable. Sally Potter shouldn't be allowed to make another movie. She shouldn't be allowed to see another movie. She should move to Calcutta and wash the feet of the poor as penance for the suffering she's inflicted on the world through this film.

She is a scientist in a loveless and dead marriage with politician Anthony. He is chef in a London hotel. They meet one night when she comes to a dinner event with her husband. A small bit of flirting turns into a meeting and starts an affair between him and her that is passionate and intimate despite the gap between them in regards race, status, culture, background and income.I was brought to this film out of curiosity more than anything else. The plot summary said that it was written entirely in rhyming couplets and, despite not knowing quite what to expect I figured it was different and interesting enough to be worth a look. At first the novelty of hearing a modern Shakespearian dialogue distracted me from the story but once my brain got into the flow of the words I was taken into the characters and the story. Plot wise I can see why some viewers are put off this because the story is secondary to the characters and the dialogue. That said though, the characters are well brought out with the dialogue – which is something I didn't think would be that easy to do. I was interested in He and She although I must admit that the story wasn't there to make the most of them.Instead the film does delight in the dialogue and holding the audience with the flow as much as with the content. This was enough for me but I understand why this makes this film one of limited appeal which is why the votes on this site number in the hundreds rather than the thousands. The cast respond well to this across the board but none more so than Allen. She enjoys the lead and makes a lot of her character and her lines. Abkarian is almost as good but the film offers him less to do – he works well with Allen even though the dialogue does slightly limit the impression of passion between them. Supporting turns from Neill, Leonidas, Lewis, Johnson mostly produce good individual scenes while Henderson does a good job as the narrator, framing the film as one of several cleaners viewing the stage while also being on it themselves.Overall then a curio piece that is worth a look for what it does well. It flows well to the ear even if Potter's ability as director is somewhat less than that as the writer here. The cast deal well with the dialogue and aid the flow but the weaknesses in the narrative are there for all to see and will put many viewers off from seeing what it does well.

This PIECE OF CRAP IS HORRIBLE. I was screaming at the rhyming verses. It sounded like Dr. Seuss Doing Shakespeare.Who does she think she is rhyming her script like it were a 100 minute song. Don't try to do Shakespeare. The writer sounds desperate. Who does she think she is, a poet???? The lines are so hokey and cheesy. I wanted to throw the DVD out the window. What a waste of my time. Id rather see a remake of Green eggs and ham done in farsi than suffer through another second of this crap again. It could have been a good plot but for gods sake stop the rhymed verses. this isn't the 1500's and this isn't opera. If your gonna make me suffer through this movie, at least let there be some hot naked chicks. That might give the move more credibility

I boo-ed at this movie, and it was in my own living room. I boo on Sally Potter. She's very full of talent. At least, that's what her movies seem to keep trying to pound into me. It would be nice if this really was as wise as it pretends to be. The Lebanese cook is really obnoxious in his, "I say wiseness always" dialogue. Fer cryin' out loud, it's really BORING and SELF AWARE. This kind of talk reminds me of someone I know and I don't like them. I hated The Upside of Anger, and even IT was better than this overly talky, boring, pedantic film. The lighting wasn't great, the film wasn't really all that visually interesting, and the dialogue is embarrassing. That Sally Potter doesn't have enough sense to know this is annoying.