Yes

I saw this film at the Telluride Film Festival and cannot wait to watch it over and over again. It was by far the festival favorite for everyone I talked to (minus a few teenage boys).

Sally Potter does a wonderful job of turning what could be a cliché story about a white woman falling in love with a man from the middle east into a socially, sexually, and emotionally conscious film.

The style itself is truly Potter with breathtaking cinematography that plays color and costume together in a well choreographed filmic space.

The use of verse throughout the film only adds to the plot and the characters' intensity.

All I can say is go see it, you will not be sorry. 10/10

I had the chance to see Yes when it in premiered at the Telluride Film Festival. I had no idea what to expect and that in turn was a good thing. Expectations more often than not ruin our perceptions of a film and that would be my advice for anyone seeing this film for the first time, do not expect to know what you are getting into. With that said, I believe this was a marvelous film because it was able to balance the seriousness of its subject matter with a nice touch of humor. This definitely was not a film for everybody and I say this because it does require one to think when viewing it and as we all know, a lot of people go to the movies to escape, not to think. Right away, the viewer will realize this is not your normal film simply by the dialogue, it was written in iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets. The rhyming of the dialogue might be a turn off for some, but I found it to be quite pleasing and very humorous almost in a mature Dr. Seuss sort of way. Anyone that is a writer will appreciate the time and care and difficulty that went into writing this script. Regarding the content of this film, I will only say that everything is not always as it appears and we interpret what we see...if you can appreciate this kind of thought, then see this film. If I had to compare it to another film, which I shouldn't do, I'd say American Beauty or Donnie Darko. On a technical note, I had the chance to talk to Mrs. Potter and her producer Mr. Sheppard afterwards and they informed me that it cost less than 4 million to make this film which makes it all the more magnificent.

Yes is possibly the most beautiful film I have ever seen.

Sally Potter began work on this film on September 12, 2001. The impact of the previous day's events can be felt throughout the film as He and She try to make sense of their lives and discuss both the meaning of life and the world around them.

Told in rhyming couplets, the comparison to Shakespeare is natural. Potter claimed that she would be thrilled if even one line of hers was as good as the Bard's. I believe much of her work is on par with his. The text is both witty and intelligent and addresses a plethora of modern day issues of conscience. The iambic pentameter flows very naturally throughout the film and is never a distraction - only a credit to the abilities of the writer! As with any Shakspearean production, the feelings and inner turmoil of the main characters are central.

The cinematography is excellent. The film is simply beautiful to watch and behold. As if the images were not enough, the music provides a perfect complement to all that goes on on screen.

Go see this movie. It is unlike any other. Everyone shines!

I was tempted to do this comment in iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets, but somebody from the "New Yorker" has already done it, and of course I would have run the risk of doing an even worse job than Sally Potter has.

Not that this is such a bad film – it's different from the normal run of romantic comedies. At times it becomes quite didactic as "He" asserts the Muslim philosophical position and "She" replies for the secular West. The dying Ulster communist Aunt's story is also an unusual ingredient. Even the more conventional elements – the alienated husband (Sam Neil), the empty affluence, the troubled teenager (Stephanie Leonidas), are deftly handled. I say "romantic comedy" because the film ends like one, but it could have equally ended as tragedy. "He" and "She" are both missing something, and find it in each other, only to discover that love does not always conquer all. One could blow one's brains out. But then one can always high-tail it to Cuba instead.

This is a very artful piece of film-making with some very clever camera-work and adroit use of music, but we still have a very ordinary story. Joan Allen as "she" does manage to transcend the material and make us care about her character, which is quite an achievement as the character is a beautiful middle-class Irish-American ice princess scientist stuck in a dead marriage whose only real passion is in what's at the other end of her microscope. It's interesting how she manages to appear so radiant, 10 years younger in fact, after her first roll in the hay with "He".

"He", the French-Armenian actor Simon Abkarian, comes across to start with as a bit of a cliché, the handsome charming feckless foreigner. He is not helped by the aforesaid iambic pentameter, which was not designed for foreigners speaking English. He has to utter one of the most insincere-sounding pick-up lines I have ever heard: "If I was your husband I would be so jealous of your beauty I would not leave your side". As we see more of him, a serious side emerges, an educated Muslim who sees a lot wrong with the West and not much with his own society, despite its inability to live in peace. This he blames on the West. However, the dialectic is sidelined by the plot line, which as suggested above, winds up on a Cuban beach.

The novel "Orlando" by Virginia Woolf was a pretty weird property, and Sally Potter produced a weird and wonderful movie from it. Her "Tango Lesson" was semi-autobiographical, well produced and absorbing. This movie is ambitious – "let's see if we can make a romantic comedy about the clash of civilizations and the meaning of life" and although visually fascinating it not surprisingly doesn't quite make it. It has its moments though – Maid Shirley Henderson's disquisitions on the nature of dirt to the camera, Sam Neil's guitar miming to an Eric Clapton number and the restaurant orgasm to name a few. Sally Potter still has the ability to find a different angle on existence.

First off, you need to set your expectations. This is an extremely arty film. There are no explosions, chase scenes, or guns in this movie.

Instead, we have a film with metaphors, themes and relationships. There are few movies I have seen recently that attack such large and serious topics.

The major themes in this movie are God, love and politics. During the course of the movie, racism and war, terrorism and the Middle East, infidelity, atheism and Marxism are all brought on stage.

As if that weren't enough, the majority of the dialog is in rhymed verse, with perhaps occasional interjections of free verse. In fact, the entire very contemporary script has a vaguely Shakespearean feel to it, though there is no shortage of four letter words.

The entire cast of the movie is wonderful, but the centerpiece of the entire film is Joan Allen, who gives an almost supernaturally wonderful performance. The heart of the movie is a moving love story, but this is a serious romance with strong, deeply emotional scenes designed to reflect adult, rather than teenage, themes.

There are also major metaphors in the movie, such as the role of cleaning, which usually stands for an attempt to wipe out guilt or corruption, and the use of glass, and particularly glasses of water, to show the way different viewpoints distort a particular perception of reality.

If you are prepared to see a very serious, beautiful made, and extremely arty film, then this is an excellent way to spend your time. I simply loved the movie, and would probably enjoy seeing it again sometime soon. But please, don't bother to go if you are looking for something else. This is a very heartfelt and intense movie, which refuses to compromise.