Review of Yes (2005) by Robert H — 02 Jan 2006

[font=Times New Roman][font=Verdana][size=2]Intriguing and challenging in its subject matter but sterile in its presentation to the point of appearing naïve, [i]Yes [/i]re-imagines the romantic affair genre as a deconstruction of social, sexual and cultural ideas and values.

Joan Allen plays the distraught wife of a crumbling marriage who meets a frontal and interesting man from the Middle East at one of her husband?s many high-class rendezvous. She and He (the two remain unnamed in the credits) begin a relationship that before long (d)evolves into a dialectic investigation and ultimate clashing of their cultural backgrounds, her atheistic belief in science and subtly violent tendencies clashing with his humility and honor.

Written entirely in iambic pentameter and delivered without an emphasis on said rhyming pattern, the exchanged verses of [i]Yes [/i]bear a subtle poetry, equally benefiting and distracted by the squeaky-clean bourgeoisie production that seems to exist not in reality but an emotionally sterile occupation in space where these ideas can be examined better from a distance, in other words, without having to truly engage with them in reality.

That writer-director Sally Porter is trying to examine the ties and conflicts between American and Middle Eastern cultures, amongst others, is obvious enough in the proceedings (not to mention that she began penning script on September 12th, 2001), but the utter obviousness of it all ? including a semi-framing device that has the brunt workers for the upper class narrating and guiding the story along, paralleling the lower class? support of the upper class in a traditional capitalist society ? negates much of the intended greater profundity.

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