Yes Man and Yes Day have the same premise, so which movie is better in comparison? In Peyton Reed's 2008 comedy, Yes Man, Jim Carrey stars as a recently-divorced California man named Carl who attends a motivational seminar and then says "yes" to everything. In Miguel Arteta's 2021 Netflix film, Yes Day, Jennifer Garner and Édgar Ramírez portray a California couple who allow their children to set the family rules for 24 hours. Yes Man and Yes Day are family-friendly, but the 2008 movie has significantly more to offer.
Importantly, Yes Man's scope of production allows for more comedic opportunities than Yes Day. Both stories take place across the greater Los Angeles area, but the sequences in the Netflix movie are longer, with the script favoring situational humor over zany, rapid-fire jokes. Yes Man and Yes Day have nearly identical Tomatometer and audiences scores, which shows that the newer film's practical storytelling resonates just as much as Carrey's comedic surrealism.
Yes Man has much bigger moments than Yes Day, primarily because of Carrey's lead performance and the narrative structure. Garner and Ramírez are endearing in their Netflix film, but the comedy mostly involves them reacting to other characters. Carrey plays off the supporting cast with his usual brand of physical/maniacal comedy, which includes some well-placed callbacks to the Ace Ventura films. In addition, Zooey Deschanel's complementary lead performance provides some extra narrative depth, as her free-spirited character Allison balances out Carrey's zany energy. All of the characters in Netflix's Yes Day are similarly charming, but they are also thinly-sketched archetypes that audiences have seen time and time again. There's plenty to enjoy in Arteta's film, and the cast diversity is especially important, but Yes Man's Carl and Allison are more complex than Yes Day's collective protagonists.
To its credit, Netflix film Yes Day includes strong guest performances. Fortune Feimster makes the most of her screen time as Jean the Paramedic, while Arturo Castro offers even more as the lonely and self-deprecating Officer Jones. These unique characters complement the day-in-a-life premise, and arguably steal the spotlight from the leads. With Yes Man, there's an impactful love story that anchors the film, which makes all of the supporting performances feel like icing on the cake, whether it's Bradley Cooper as Peter, Rhys Darby as Norman, or Fionnula Flanagan as Tillie. Overall, there's much more for audiences to connect with. In the Netflix film Yes Day, there's a surprise element that drives each scene, but viewers may not necessarily be curious about what happens next to the characters when the movie concludes.
Zooey Deschanel is the X-factor in Yes Man. By 2008, she had appeared in several films but hadn't quite transformed into an A-list star. Yes Man shows her massive potential, and subsequently led to her casting as the quirky Jessica Day in New Girl. In Yes Day, Garner offers a sense of familiarity for audiences, as she's a well-known movie and TV star, but when Yes Man released in 2008, there was a mysterious quality with Deschanel. Years later, Reed's film holds up rather well because it's not dated by pre-social media dialogue and tropes. Yes Man remains fresh and exciting, while Yes Day offers 86 minutes of safe comfort viewing for locked-down streamers.