Thursday, July 28, 2005

Yes

Yes is a really interesting film. I went for two reasons - firstly because it had Sam Neill in it (see previous comments about favourite actors),and secondly because the dialogue is in rhyming couplets. Sally Potter was the director and wrote the screenplay and the music but I didn't really regard this as a plus because the other films I've seen of hers (Orlando;The Tango Lesson) were pretty wierd.

Yes is definitely the best of the three Sally Potter films I've seen. It's really just the story of an affair and the heroine isn't especially likeable, but the inter-personal dynamics are quite absorbing. The rhyming script worked well, though sometimes I got distracted into imagining how it would look written down - sometimes she used words that didn't actually rhyme but would have looked similar on paper. I think it should have been sub-titled so you could appreciate how they looked as well as how they sounded.

The heroine's cleaning lady (who calls herself a "dirt consultant") provides a running commentary on the characters' lives which is really enjoyable.The ending was a bit kitsch, we thought.

Anne's rating: 3.5/5 Ian's rating 3/5.

1 comment:

  1. I wouldn't say the ending was contrived so much as unnecessary. It seemed to have a perfectly good ending 10-15 minutes earlier which I think fitted in much better with the mood of the film.
    I enjoyed the verse and it seemed to fit in remarkably well (and I didn't feel the urge to read it). I would say recommend this film mainly for that reason (the other reason is the very cute god daughter).
    It is a great pity that the minor characters weren't developed more (especially Sam Neill's) as it could improved this from an interesting film to a good one.

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