Directed by Peyton Reed

Jim Carrey is Carl Allen, dull, bored, unsociable, unhappy. He's fast alienating the friends he's got, until a chance encounter with an old acquaintance gets him along to a self-help meeting run by charismatic bully ‘Terrence' (Terence Stamp) where he's bamboozled/browbeaten into entering into a pact to answer ‘yes' to every request made of him. With hilarious and romantic results. Sounds hackneyed? Well, to some extent, but the plot moves along at a bright and breezy rate, it's romantic without being cheesy, and its feelgood message is conveyed in a surprisingly palatable way -or am I, god forbid, just feeling Christmassy?

I approach Carrey movies with trepidation, as his physical stuff has always left me cold. His forays into more ‘straight ‘ acting, however - The Truman Show, Eternal Sunshine... - have shown that he's an excellent actor, and one always hopes that with age and wisdom he will turn in more of these kinds of performances. As he does here. A pity then that the filmmakers feel duty-bound to put in the occasional manic 5 minutes, no doubt as a sop to die-hard Carrey fans. So we have to have unnecessary insertions of the gurning situations and the pratfalls, the most embarrassing of which has him escaping from hospital on a high-powered motorbike, wearing - you've guessed it - a skimpy hospital gown. Oh please.

The calmer aspects elicit more laughs, helped by good support. Zooey Deschanel is acceptably kooky as his love interest, and the chemistry's good between them. Rhys Darby is a hoot as Norman, the boss who is more like a floppy dog wanting to be friends, with a look of an off-kilter Michael Caine and that New Zealand accent which sounds even more dipsy than usual when amidst a sea of American. Terence Stamp has a whale of a time as scary cult leader Terrence, with a touch of McDowell madness. Can this really be the delicate young chap who met Julie every Friday night at Waterloo underground?

If you like Jim Carrey, you'll like this. If you find his madcap persona irritating, you'll still find enough of his intelligent acting to make it worthwhile.