Yes Day

Allison’s (Jennifer Garner) life used to be all about saying yes. She’d take risks and have fun, exploring faraway places, trying different cuisines, doing mountain climbing, and more. She found a partner to join her in always saying yes in Carlos (Édgar Ramírez). The years passed and the pair tied the knot and now they’re parents. These days, they find themselves saying no all the time, in an effort to protect their little ones and exercise some kind of control.

Now the couple finds they’re just not fun anymore, and Allison discovers that the kids see her as a tyrant (Carlos is the more liberal parent with the children, as he wants to take a break from playing boss, as he does at work). Thus, Allison and Carlos decide to give the three kids a Yes Day. Over 24 hours, anything the kids want to do, they have to go along with.

‘Yes Day’ offers a bright, colourful, fun, and silly adventure which is ideal for a household to sit down and watch together on Netflix en famille. It’s hardly going to go down as one of the best family movies ever. But it’s a light, breezy watch that clocks in at a no-nonsense 86 minutes.

By no-nonsense we refer to the sensible running time, where so many movies overindulge these days. But there’s good old-fashioned nonsense and enjoyment aplenty arising from the Yes Day activities. They span an ice cream challenge, science experiments, a game of kablowie involving water balloons and flag stealing, a trip to the fun fair, a car wash with the windows down, and an unintentional arrest.

The actors carry the film well. Garner is especially a joy to watch as she recreates the childish, silly side we saw to her character Jenna in ‘13 Going on 30’. As the kids learn that there can be value in saying no (a takeaway particularly for the teenage daughter, played by Jenny Ortega, who Netflix viewers will recognise from ‘You’), ‘Yes Day’ is extremely predictable. But it’s nice and harmless as far as younger viewers are concerned, and parents should get a kick out of the relatability of Garner and Ramírez’s plights.

'Yes Day' streams on Netflix from Friday, 12 March.