You already enjoy Yes Day and it’s time to say why this movie is a must. Not only it’s fun, but also so real and so … emotional. It just touches you and is about love, family and all the mistakes that are made when loving because family loves you no matter what.
Here we go!
At the beginning of the movie, we meet a big family that … is not happy at all. Allison, the mother, is the one who is in charge of saying “no” to all the crazy things of her young children and her teenage daughter ask and Carlos, her husband and father of the children, is in charge of the funny things and always saying yes to them. … just for Allison to say no. This makes Allison like the devil to the kids and Carlos is, well, the best father in the world. And it is totally unfair.
In other words, it is a social criticism of everything that happens today. Allison takes care of practically everything while Carlos prefers to spend everything and just have fun with the children, forgetting that he is not one of their friends, but their father. Thus, Allison puts all the burden of the family on her back, including staying at home taking care of her children, without getting her professional challenges while Carlos, well … helps her to be “the bad one”.
These two have reminded me of Phil and Claire from Modern Family. There was an episode that dealt with exactly this and how Phil left the hardest part of parenting – saying “no” – to Claire, while he was trying to be friends with their children.
So much so, that the children expose her mother in front of the teachers as little less than a monster and the children’s teachers call Allison to order because they think there is a problem and I say, really? I mean, children are children. Obviously her mother tells them no, they will see her as a spoilsport and a dictator. And, of course, adolescence does not help either, and at that age, you always think that your mother is your worst enemy. Teachers are, well, that, teachers. They should know all this and not care about something like that. It just seems like a totally unfair situation for Allison.
The fact is that, thanks to a crazy teacher, Allison and Carlos decide to follow an even more crazy idea: the Yes Day. Without restrictions, say yes to everyone for 24 hours. And this is the premise of the movie. Thanks to the Yes Day, the roles of the whole family will be exchanged and that will lead to a better understanding of all the positions involved.
But first, Allison must take another hit when she comes home and the whole world is against her. And the worst thing is that she is … alone. Carlos is not there for her, he does not support her and she is alone, as if there was a wall between there and her family and she was on one side and they on the other.
So, everyone strives to reach the goal: Yes Day. And the long-awaited day arrives … and it’s crazy. So much so that Carlos gets tired of the whole family thing early on and wants to go back to work. He’s counting on Allison to say no and be the bad one. He always counts on it. But this time she doesn’t say no and she would turn to him to be the bad guy, something he doesn’t want and just … see his family united after so long … he doesn’t have the heart to break that happiness. So he signs up for Yes Day.
Things get a bit out of control and while Allison and Carlos are in the dungeon the children take the opportunity to do their mischief. The oldest of the group should be a, well, a mother, but she is a teenager and quickly relies on the little ones not to be, actually, children. How could it be otherwise, everything goes wrong.
She goes to the concert and something that seemed like the coolest thing in the world turns out to be a nightmare. And it is then, when she is most desperate and lost in pain, that she finds her mother. She is looking for her and does something risky and daring and crazy and fun just to find her, just so she knows that she is there and that she will always be. The same person she called boring just a few days before. She is crying but when she sees her, when she really sees her mother she just runs to hug her.
She realized that her mother was right, she is not a monster, she just wants to protect her from the cruel world, from the adult world, as much as she can. When they get home, she also realizes what it means to be responsible for naughty children, she learns that sometimes you have to say no and that growth comes with responsibilities. She now knows that it is not that easy and that her mother just wants to be there for her.
Carlos, for his part, learns that what Allison needs is a partner, not someone who is a colleague of their children, but someone who is right next to her, accompanying her on the way.
Allison also learned something. She learned that sometimes you have to let go and enjoy life a little more and to say yes many more times.
All the characters put themselves in each other’s shoes and manage to learn a valuable lesson and to be more empathetic. Love it!
We all need a Yes Day from time to time … do you sign up?
And here ends our Yes Day review, I hope you enjoyed the movie as much as we did. More movies like that, please!
