Yes Day (PG)
Jennifer Garner stars in Yes Day, a delightful family comedy about wacky hijinks on a day when kids pick the fun.
Or put another way, Jennifer Garner plays a mom in a waking nightmare of a horror story about a lady going through some stuff personally and professionally who is bullied by her family into participating in some internet nonsense to prove she can still loosen up and have fun — you know what would be fun how about someone else do the laundry for a change, dishes don’t wash themselves, don’t want to see Mom erupt in a rage volcano when she steps on a Lego how about you PICK UP THE LEGOS.
It is possible this movie touched a nerve.
When the Torres children — young teen Katie (Jenna Ortega), tween Nando (Julian Lerner) and young Ellie (Everly Carganilla) — complain that their mom, Allison (Garner), always says “no” to everything they want to do, she makes a deal with them. If they approach their kid duties (chores, homework) with more gusto, they will earn a Yes Day, a 24-hour period where the parents won’t say no to any of their plans or desires, within legal, geographical and financial limits. (Their “mom says no” complaints are documented both in a haiku Katie writes for school and a movie Nando makes calling his mom a dictator for, among other things, losing her cool when she steps on Legos.) And even though that sounds exhausting, Allison approaches the day with excitement because it means spending non-nagging time with her family, most significantly with independence-seeking Katie and with work-absorbed husband Carlos (Edgar Ramírez). Allison, a former sky-dive and backpack-the-world type, is also under some stress outside the home as her attempts to reenter the workforce have not been successful.
A lot of cute giant ice cream sundae-eating and paintball-ish game-playing ensues. The actors here have good family chemistry, with Ortega believably walking that teen line between having fun with siblings and parents while still wanting to do mature things with her friends, and the other kids turning in cute but not cloying performances. Ramírez turns in a completely fine “likeable dad” performance, even if his character gets the least to do of the bunch. Perhaps because of movies like Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and her Capital One ads, I’ve come to think of Garner more as a mom character than as her Alias action hero but here she reminds you can she can pull off physical comedy and action-y moments as well as more sitcom-y moments of humor.
Even with a side plot involving Katie and her plans to go to a music festival with some friend’s cousin and some older-dude friends, the movie is basically focused on wholesome goofiness. Wholesome goofiness and carpet-destroying foam — but I don’t think everybody who watches this is going to spend quite as much time thinking “how are they going to get that out of the car upholstery” and “does homeowners insurance cover that” as I did. But then maybe that’s a sign that I need a Yes Day. (No.) B
Rated PG for some rude and suggestive material, and brief language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Miguel Arteta with a screenplay by Justin Malen (based on the book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld), Yes Day is an hour and 26 minutes long and is available on Netflix.
Cherry (R)
Tom Holland plays a young man who falls into addiction in Cherry, a movie directed by Russo brothers Anthony and Joe of Marvel movies fame.
Specifically, they directed the Captain Americas Winter Soldier and Civil War and two Avengers — Infinity War and Endgame.I mention this because it’s hard not to watch this movie as “Anthony and Joe Russo show they can do something not Marvel” or maybe as “Anthony Russo and Joe Russo bring popcorn movie flash to a downbeat story.”
We first see Holland, whose character isn’t called by name in the movie, as he prepares to rob a bank, explaining his actions to us in narration that is weaved through the movie. The bank robbery serves as bookends to his short (in years) life story, starting when he is aimlessly attending college and meets Emily (Ciara Bravo), the girlfriend who quickly becomes his wife, through a stint in the Army and into his post-Army years of PTSD, heroin addiction and crime.
The bare bones of Cherry are a thoroughly depressing story that the movie manages to add humor (dark humor) to and that is warmed up by Holland, who I think does an above average job as a kid who seems a little bit like he’s blown by the wind through his life.
Bravo, whose Emily feels more like Holland’s character’s projection of her than she does like a fully formed person, feels sort of sleepy throughout. Their relationship is one of the cores of this movie but her wispiness prevents us from ever really understanding why she stays with Holland or why the relationship is so important to him.
I wasn’t bothered by the movie’s general storytelling showiness, all strange comic/tragic asides, stylized shots and fourth-wall-breaking narration. Perhaps at a runtime shorter (significantly shorter) than two hours and 22 minutes the style of the movie and the general solid-ness of Holland’s performance would be enough to keep things moving and to make the movie’s points (assuming the elements about the military, the war, careless opioid prescription and the socioeconomics of a gray-looking Cleveland are points the movie’s trying to make and not just, like, story-telling accessories). But you feel this movie’s lengthy runtime and it doesn’t always provide you with a good reason why you are lingering in this or that moment. As a result, a lot of the more stylish elements end up feeling like padding.
Cherry isn’t a bad movie but the result of all this moviemaking style put on a relatively thin story is that you feel like you’re getting about four inches of elaborate frosting on one inch of cake. C+
Rated R for graphic drug abuse, disturbing and violent images, pervasive language and sexual content, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo with a screenplay by Angela Russo-Otstot and Jessica Goldberg (from the novel Cherry by Nico Walker), Cherry is two hours and 22 minutes long and is available on Apple TV+.
Featured photo: Yes Day
