Gone Baby Gone & Yes Man

Gone Baby Gone

This, in the UK, has a special resonance for me as it appears to follow a very similar path to the Madeline Mccan story. For those unfamiliar with this particular drama - an extremely irresponsible parent leaves their child alone for ages and is very surprised when the sprog gets kidnapped.

Gone Baby Gone proves that films are better than real life, though. The film isn't afraid to raise the important question of whether or not the kid is better off with her massively irresponsible mother or with a parent who actually gives a shit.

It starts off really, really well. Casey Afflek (who is definitely one of the most innately likable actors currently working) plays a detective hired by the kids grandmother to track her down.

It's a good film, it's tense, it's well directed... the only real problem is the script. Whilst things start off simply enough, there are so many plot twists, the damn thing just gets too complicated for its own good. There is such a thing as plot twist apathy where any given film has twisted itself into a knot and yet keeps twisting. Gone Baby Gone suffers from this in spades.

It's still quite good and it's better than a poke in the eye if you have nothing better to do. It's certainly not as emotionally draining as films like this normally are so it should be praised for that at least.



Yes Man

I still like Jim Carey. Yes, I only like three of his films - The Mask, The Truman Show & Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind but in all of those films he mixes being entertaining with soul and that has to count for something.

Yes Man starts off really, really badly. It's the standard Carey wackiness that we've seen in a dozen movies before. Things do settle down when Carey takes his pledge to say "Yes" to everything - so if you wanted to actually like this film, i heartily recommend skipping the first 15 minutes.

From then on... well it's still not a very good film. The plot isn't really there, there's still a bit too much standard issue silliness but it's held together by... well- the heart of the script writer.

The film isn't really a story, so much as the question: "wouldn't it be great to live your life like this" and I, for one, wanted to say "yes" to more things after the credits rolled. It's a film that makes you feel good about life and the opportunities it offers you - so it's practically unique in that respect.

It also helps that I have read the book this film is based on and really, really didn't like it. Anyone who has any great love of the book will probably hate the extreme liberties Yes Man takes with the plot. Although Danny Wallace does have a cameo, I'm told.

I'd actually recommend Yes Man over Gone Baby Gone. It's a worse film but at the end of the day, Yes Man might inspire people to change their lives for the better, Gone Baby Gone serves only to make people cynical about parents and their children.

Actually, that makes them both good.

Hooray, watch both of them.