Yes

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.

Not since Shakespeare's day have playwrights written entire screenplays in iambic pentameter, but writer/director Sally Potter might single-handedly start the trend again. However, it took me over a half hour to realize that the whole film was one epic poem – before then all I thought was, "This dialogue is horrible! People don't actually speak like this!" But that's the point. Poetry is not meant to imitate average speech. That's why it's poetry.

Joan Allen plays a lonely wife (whose name is never mentioned) trapped in a loveless marriage who has a fiercely passionate affair with a Muslim man from Lebanon. Because she was born in Northern Ireland (but raised, however, in America), she thinks she understands her lover's pain and suffering as an Arab man living in London. These two lovers fight about race, class, religion, politics, stereotypes, and identity, and with the recent bombings on the London Underground, this film is unsettlingly too relevant. Yes is a superb love poem that speaks volumes about what we, as a society, are afraid to mention in our post-9/11 world. But unfortunately, sitting through this film feels more like homework than pleasure.

Sally Potter's Yes premiered this evening at the Toronto International Film Festival before a 1300-strong crowd, with the director and star Joan Allen in attendance. I am so grateful to have been present at this extraordinary event (the film is still in negotiations for distribution). Yes is a love story between She (Joan Allen, stunning in the role of a lifetime) and He (Simon Akbarian). She is married (to Sam Neill, who manages to play both boorish and sympathetic), a scientist, and Irish-American, living in London - a city Potter loves to photograph and whose different, colliding cultures she conveys superbly. He is Lebanese, working as a chef in London. She meets He. Love ensues.

It sounds so simple, and in a sense it is. The film is luminous, elegant, ravishingly beautiful, subtly erotic. The love scenes feel so natural. And yet -- all the dialogue is spoken in rhymed iambic pentameter. Scenes are shot from canted angles, through glass or water, sometimes from CCTV cameras. Jump-cuts, motion blur, internal monologue, an unsettling score - all these elements challenge the simplicity of the idea of love. He and She are unnamed, but they have backgrounds, political and religious beliefs that take the narrative so far beyond the usual romantic pap of Hollywood cinema. Every frame and every gesture invites multiple viewings and multiple readings, partly for the precision and lush beauty (each city has its own colour scheme), and because so many other films and paintings are evoked (including an audacious nod to Orlando early on!) And because this is a Sally Potter film, the passion and the politics have a strain of humour. Or in this case, a frame, provided by Shirley Henderson as She's cleaning woman. Her opening and closing monologues in the whiteness of She's London house are immediately engaged, and totally unlike anything else you'll see or hear in film (at least English-language film). In fact, that's a good summary: Yes is totally unlike anything you've seen before.

Sally Potter has in my view made a masterpiece.

To challenge every issue from racism to religion to cultural difference, let alone to the big question, the what's it all about question, and all in one film is astounding but to do this with such daring, the rhyming verse, structure, cinematography, musical score is nothing short of genius. Joan Allen is remarkable as She. Her beauty is second only to her delivery of the some of the most intelligent and profound verse that I have ever heard. Shiela Hancock's death speech sits on its own as an inspired piece of writing. There are so many great moments in this film, there is no point in trying to list them, but do look out for the wine bar scene!

Potter has reminded me why film is great.

Thank you Sally Potter.

I saw it at the Toronto Film Festival but I had not seen any of Sally Potter's previous films prior to this and mainly saw it because of Joan Allen. Yes is a film with Joan Allen and Sam Neill and directed by Sally Potter. It is about a woman who is in a loveless marriage who has an affair with a Lebanese chef who was a surgeon in Beirut. Shirley Henderson plays the cleaner who acts as narrator and sort of Greek chorus to give background and opinion. I didn't like this film but I think women, in general, will. The acting is good especially Joan Allen and Simon Abkarian (apparently this was his first major role in English, I could not tell he was that good) but slow paced with some artistic shots (shots through water or glass or some obstruction because in real life we don't always have the perfect angle and things are not always clear). Most of the dialogue was in iambic pentameter with rhyming couplets. If you've seen Sally Potter's other work and liked it, then I think you'll like this. It is definitely different and Joan Allen was gorgeous but more for the art house crowd who appreciate a Dutch angle or the lens obstacles or the fact the film speed was off. There was deliberate slowing or disjointing of the frame speed in several scenes with her and her lover. As if the film was being shown at 22 or 26 frames per second or time was passing differently (which could have been a case of trying to catch the human perspective where time sometimes seems sped up so an hour goes by in a blink of an eye or a moment can seem to last forever). While most of the audience loved it, I think the average guy would be bored by this film. Having said that, there are several layers to this film and may improve with additional viewings