It's unsurprising that a movie written in rhyming verse would have stilted or self-conscious moments--but the sumptuous beauty, sinuous rhythms, and cinematic intricacies of
Yes may astonish viewers who expect something stuffy or antiquarian. The plot is little more than an affair between an unnamed Irish-American biologist (Joan Allen, once the queen of repression in
The Ice Storm, now becoming an art-house sexpot in this and
Off the Map) and an unnamed Middle-Eastern chef (Simon Abkarian,
Ararat), yet the movie explores just about everything: Marriage, religion, international politics, motherhood, and the nature of zero, while travelling from London to Belfast to Beirut to Havana. Writer/director Sally Potter (
Orlando,
The Tango Lesson) has enormous ambitions;
Yes abounds with complex ideas and daring flourishes, both verbal and visual, juxtaposing the austere and the erotic, intellect and grief. If not everything succeeds, what doesn't is more than made up for by what does. Also featuring Sam Neill (
The Piano,
Jurassic Park) as Allen's aloof husband and Shirley Henderson (
Topsy-Turvy) as a housecleaner with a philosophical perspective on dirt.
--Bret Fetzer
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