A rhymed couplet is a gloss, a sheen. It is courtly, borne of sophistry, and what there is to be found in it is often in what is left unsaid rather than what you might find on the page. It is also used, when used pithily, to express concisely and without fear of mockery for preciousness the exact inward workings of one's soul. As Angelo in "Measure for Measure," hardly a man given to poetry, says: "Ever before now/ When men were fond I smiled and wondered how." Sometimes Shakespeare uses them as a drum roll to let you know the soliloquy is over. Their use is varied and imprecise, but it is rare to find a work of primarily dramatic intent that utilizes them over any length of time.
This is, perhaps, appropriate, because Sally Potter's "Yes," while undeniably interesting, is varied and imprecise, moreso than it thinks it is. Blame not Joan Allen, even when she is on the verge of making us believe she is losing control and surrendering she must still cope with the regimented rhymes. Blame not Simon Abkarian, though a bit goofy his facility borders on the sublime. Rather it is ironing and weaving on behalf of the director/writer that has left catches and snags in a pattern that is intended to be tightly woven. The asides by the delightful Shirley Henderson are, indeed, delightful, but their relationship to the plot is tangential at best. To say that the sketchily drawn Sam Neill's character is sketchily drawn is to belie the intricacies of a skillful sketch. I wasn't even aware except from reviews afterwards that his character was a politico.
The most moving part of the movie, the part that reduced me to tears, was the Auntie's silent soliloquy about death. It certainly rivaled Shakespeare. And it had scratch-all to do with the film.
It is not surprising, as many have noted, that the confrontation scene is reported to be the first scene written in the film. It was an interesting scene, and I liked how she called him a "terrorist" not as an unspecific slur, but because of his behavior towards her personally. What was surprising and disappointing was that this scene was not the jumping off point into the deeper regions and darker places. That would have made for an interesting movie. By having it as the climax we go from 60 to 0 in 2 hours. The Deus Ex Auntie relieves Potter of having to write anything really difficult. God forbid we should have to go down further beneath the polished and rhyming surface into the ugly, and worthwhile, murk.
The shot composition is excellent, but I wish someone would tell Ms. Potter and Wong Kar Wai that the blurred slo-mo is a feature available on the cheapest camera, and thus looks cheap cheap cheap.
The Onion's review of this film really annoyed me because it stated as a matter of course: "Visually and narratively, Yes is inarguably pretentious
" Oh, is it now? I would say that it is only marginally successful, but I think it is a sorry state of affairs when trying to do anything interesting earns you a de facto smear. If you come back with "well, it had a pretension in the same way that a hopeful was a pretender to a throne" then your sense of meaning stops in the era of rhymed couplets. They could have just said that at least she tried to do something different and not been such snide sots.
So: at least she tried to do something different, but instead of just getting our feet wet next time she should try throwing us without warning off a high high cliff, so high we never know when we will ever hit the water or how deep and dark it might be when we get there. Ms. Potter is the one that really needs to lose control. And: Yes, the laughing on the beach ending wasn't really earned. This is most worth seeing for the two main performances, although I might say that Mr. Abkarian's native confidence was occasionally out of place; in his interpretation, the character was always so sure of himself sometimes even more than his dialogue indicated.
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