Book-based family comedy mixes silly fun, positive messages.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 8+?
Any Positive Content?
Violence & Scariness
a little
Fierce water balloon fight/capture-the-flag competition. Carlos suffers indigestion after eating too much ice cream, falls out of a tree, is attacked by birds (sending him to hospital, where he's told he's fine). A woman drives an ambulance haphazardly on the freeway. A kid party gets out of control when foam explodes everywhere. Allison has a knock-down fight with another woman over a toy gorilla. Katie gets lost at a music festival.
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A teen's friend's cousin sets the younger girls up with two older boys. Carlos and Allison kiss on their wedding day and later in jail. Carlos and the kids demonstrate how to twerk.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.
Getting to do everything you want isn't always as fun as you might imagine. Family members take care of each other. Parents/caregivers usually have kids' best interests in mind when they set rules or aren't permissive. They'll often go to great lengths for kids' happiness and safety. It's important for kids and teens to be responsible for their choices. Communication is important among spouses and between parents/caregivers and kids. It helps foster empathy and understanding.
Positive Role Models
a lot
Allison is a strict but dedicated, caring mom. Carlos is caring but has harder time being authority figure at home -- that's his role at work. Teen Katie learns lesson about taking risks that her parents don't think she's ready for. Younger siblings Nando and Ellie find out that having the big party of your dreams can lead to stress, loss of control, destruction. Allison and Carlos say yes to some questionable choices (e.g., rolling windows down at car wash) in interests of Yes Day, but nothing truly dangerous. Torres family is bilingual; they switch comfortably between English and Spanish.
Educational Value
a little
Kids can learn to empathize with their parents and grasp why parents place limits and rules on their behavior. They can observe that kids and teens must also take responsibility for themselves and their own actions.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Yes Day, based on the book by author Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrator Tom Lichtenheld, is a fun family comedy with both improbable plot twists and positive messages about communication and empathy. Just be ready for your kids to want their own "yes day" after watching. Parents Allison (Jennifer Garner, reteaming here with her Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day director Miguel Arteta) and Carlos (Edgar Ramirez) suffer everything from indigestion and physical injury to jail time and a water-logged car and house over the course of the rule-free family day. But their kids also end the day feeling that their dose of freedom has maybe gone too far, allowing the film to send home the values of responsibility, natural consequences, and healthy limits. Their teenage daughter in particular (Jane the Virgin's Jenna Ortega) learns a scary lesson when she's left alone and loses her phone at a music festival, where a lot of the older concert-goers around her appear to be drunk or high. The younger kids, meanwhile, are surprised by how carelessly their friends treat their home and belongings. Language includes "sucks," "wuss," "peeing," "poopy-pants," "God," and "skeegy." The family in the film is bilingual, and parents and kids switch comfortably between English and Spanish. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
We were keen to watch this one, based on reviews, but it’s deeply flawed.
While the concept is fun, the children (especially the older daughter) treat their parents awfully. There’s a complete absence of kindness here....and then, instead of any consequences, the parents agree to the teen’s demands.
Really poor role modelling here - for parents and kids both.
This movie wasn't supposed to be a Grammy awarding, kids are angels, everything is sunshine and rainbows movie. It's just supposed to be funny and cute and perfect for a family movie night. While I agree there was some mature content, this isn't a G-rated movie and the reviews were right here for you to read BEFORE you watched it, so you shouldn't have been surprised.
-The daughter does have some disrespectful attributes, but she's a teenager. They aren't perfect and for a teen to be portrayed as perfect in a movie would be wrong. She looked out for her siblings, resolved her relationship with her mom, and apologized.
-The projects they did in school were not meant to make the mom mad because if she had gotten mad, it would have been the same circle all over again that her children were trying to prove with their projects.
-the music festival turned out to be a lesson to Katie about life, and I'm glad that was added in there. The guys never disrespected her, and even her friends (Layla) respected her decision not to go into the tent. I really admired Katie's strength when she knew going with the boys was wrong, and she stood up for herself.
-As for the ending, the dad grounded them all, what more do you want? Nando did his best to try and stop the party before it got any worse, so it's not his fault. The happy ending was not supposed to show that bad actions can go without consequences, it was supposed to show that no matter what you do, mom and dad will always love you. That was the point of the movie.
-Yes Day was really good, my whole family watched it, our youngest being 5, and he laughed the whole time as well as my dad and mom. (I am 15). I loved this movie because it really showed the importance of loosening up and loving your family.
If you don't like the mature themes (that are barely there) then I would suggest Finding Nemo, cause you can't hide your kids from this stuff forever, besides, what's the worst that could happen? They might want a Yes Day after watching this?
What's the Story?
Allison Torres (Jennifer Garner) is always saying no to her three kids -- until one day the Torres family agrees to have a YES DAY. This involves parents agreeing to say yes to anything their kids want to do (with a few sensible ground rules). The concept, Allison and her husband, Carlos (Edgar Ramirez), are told, is that their kids will stop complaining about what they don't have and don't get to do on other days if they're given the occasional no-holds-barred day of fun and freedom. What Allison and Carlos aren't ready for is the wild day that their kids -- teen Katie (Jenna Ortega), tween Nando (Julian Lerner), and little sister Ellie (Everly Carganilla) -- have in store for them. Their yes day sends the Torres family across Los Angeles and into some unanticipated situations. But the family will find themselves more united -- and more understanding of one another's positions -- before the day is over.
Parents can go along for the ride on this movie, which is sure to entertain younger kids and offer positive lessons for tweens and teens. Like Allison and Carlos, a lot of parents can probably relate to the feeling that they've lost their groove since they had kids, or that their kids have no idea who they were before they became parents. The film abbreviates that message for young viewers: Allison and Carlos didn't just have fun pre-parenthood, they jumped out of airplanes and scaled cliffs. The chaos of their "yes day" is similarly sketched in shorthand: The Torres family doesn't just say yes, they go nuts. Garner takes the cake in a couple of very physical scenes involving a high-stakes capture-the-flag challenge and a knock-down brawl at an amusement park. Ramirez balances her out as the family's accident-prone "good cop." Having him (and Garner) speak Spanish with the kids regularly adds a great touch that many viewers will appreciate.
Kids may find the Torres family's antics hilarious: Carlos' indigestion post-ice cream binge, a house filled with sudsy water and makeshift water slides, roller coasters, water balloon fights, and parent-free adventures. But at the end of the yes day, the kids also figure out that they really do want some boundaries ... and still ultimately need their parents. It's a message parents can get behind, and just in time for older viewers: No sane parent is going to let their new-ish family vehicle fill with soap and water at a car wash just for their kids' entertainment. The film seems to be suggesting that a healthier motto for parents and kids alike is "all things in moderation." Although the film doesn't take its own advice -- going overboard and eschewing any semblance of reality more often than not -- it does have worthy themes and entertainment value for families.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the concept of a "yes day." Has your family ever had one? How did it go? Was it worth it? If you haven't, does the movie make you want to have one? How could you make sure it was safe and fun for everyone?
If you've read the book, how does it compare with the movie?
Katie goes to the music festival with her friend against her parents' wishes and behind their backs. Why did she make that decision? Was it a good one? Have you ever done something without your parents' consent? How did you feel about it?
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Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.
By Jennifer Green
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
