In a 2018 post on Instagram, Jennifer Garner appears in a red jumpsuit, dangling from a T-bar as it slowly lifts her above a large aluminum slide in some upscale indoor playplace. “Oh, I wish I hadn’t done this,” she mutters to her onlooking family. “I hate this so much. Why’d I do this?” Though she may have some misgivings about the zany position she’s in, Garner soon loosens her grip and, with a deep breath of composure, slips down onto a cushioned landing pad. It’s a pretty anticlimactic resolution for what turned out to be a very low-stakes situation, not really meriting the emotional playing-up the movie star gives it. This anodyne revelry provides the basis for the new film Yes Day, and as good a summation of its general vibe as one could hope to find.
Actor, producer, and supermom Garner observes an annual holiday known as Yes Day, originated in a 2009 children’s book and treated here like a phenomenon sweeping America. For 24 hours, parents acquiesce to their kids’ most whimsical and messy requests, the idea being that having this outlet for their rambunctious energies will make youngsters better behaved for the other 364 days of the year. (It’s crucial that anything dangerous or illegal is barred, because as several Twitterers have already noted, the movie basically operates under Purge logic.) But in this loose adaptation of Garner’s real-life hijinks, courtesy of screenwriter Justin Malen and director Miguel Arteta,…
