Yes or No 2: Come Back to Me

It is a rare WLW movie that gets a sequel. Usually, we get two hours with these characters and that’s it. Yes or No is the exception. Yes or No has two sequels. And while I thought the first Yes or No was a little juvenile, I did like it. Unfortunately, as it turns out, a second movie doesn’t make this series twice as good. Instead, I left Yes or No 2: Come Back to Me liking the characters less than I did when I started it.

Yes or No 2: Come Back to Me follows Pie and Kim’s relationship being testing due to the fact that it becomes long-distance. Kim takes an agriculture-based internship in one part of the country while Pie takes a fishery internship elsewhere. Kim only has the ability to talk to Pie on a landline she has to walk to get to. Additionally, Kim quickly bonds with Jam, her pretty co-worker.

The first problem with Come Back to Me is that it doesn’t present a good argument for Pie and Kim still ending up together at the end of the movie. Obviously, the plan from day one is that this relationship would be tested but that ultimately, the lead romantic couple would end up back together. But then the writing makes a pretty good argument for why Pie and Kim maybe shouldn’t be the relationship endgame. Other than the odd scene which villainizes her because that’s what you do with a disposable love interest, Jam is incredibly likeable and her relationship with Kim makes more sense. She points out the fact that Pie and Kim’s career choices might be geographically incompatible which is a big deal. Yet the third act disregards this and any other valid arguments in order to give these characters a happy ending.

On Pie’s end, she hasn’t grown at all. At one point she admits that she’s self-centred and refuses to change. Pie claims she doesn’t have to because that’s what love is. She’s also still ashamed that Kim presents as a tomboy. Pie hasn’t grown at all over two movie. She’s still childish, selfish and until the last few minutes of the film, slightly ashamed of Kim. That’s not exactly what you want for what’s supposed to be the key love story that gets three movies devoted to it.

While I applauded the first Yes or No for being so sexless, in this one it did get a little weird. The characters in this movie are in their 20s. Pie and Kim start the film in a long-term relationship. It just gets a little bit unlikely that there’s not a single reference to sex. There’s not even a lot of kissing. Their romantic reunion at the end of the film ends with them hugging. The sexiest thing in the movie is a scene in which Jam takes about how much she likes peanut butter and Kim says she enjoys jam and offers her a sandwich of peanut butter and jam. Jam then eats it while making heavy eye contact. A) That was a very weird scene and B) The sexiest moment in any movie should not be sandwich-based.

This complete sexlessness is part of my overall problem with Come Back To Me. Overall, the movie feels too childish. More than anything, this movie reminded me of Disney Channel original TV movies like High School Musical. And if Come Back to Me’s audience is actual children then fine. I retract at least 45% of my criticism. But I’m pretty certain it’s not. I’m fairly certain Come Back to Me is made for at least teenagers. And even for a 13-year old viewer, I think this movie would be too childish.

It’s not just the relationships that make this movie feel like a children’s TV movie. It’s the comedy too. The jokes are overused to begin with and then are often punctuated by ridiculous sound effects that actually rob the scene of any humour. It’s annoying more than anything and I can’t imagine a grown human person finding any of this stuff funny.

In general, Come Back To Me is just one cliche after another, whether that be romance cliches or overused jokes. I found it charming in the first movie but this time around, I did not. The script for Come Back To Me feels like it was an outline for a standard rom-com filled in with every cliche they could think of. And when it still wasn’t long enough, they filled up the rest of the movie with inane conversation. Some cliches they use in this movie that are so overdone that even the cliches being applied to a WLW relationship can’t save them. And besides, the first movie already featured a lot of said cliches. Pie and Kim’s breakup montage feels like a shot-for-shot redo of that same scene in the first movie. There’s just not enough original ideas here to give this movie charm.

I will end this review on a list of some of the good things about Come Back to Me because there are some. I do think the directing has improved. There’s some shots that utilize depth or point of view that make it seem like the director took a class or read a book about directing. The locations Come Back to Me films are are also beautiful and well-utilized. Also, Pie’s boss is this very creepy guy who reminded me more than anything of Joaquin Phoenix in Joker. I’m not actually sure if that’s a good thing because this character felt wildly out of place in this movie. But the actor was by far the strongest of the cast and his character was engagingly unsettling.

I’m giving Come Back to Me a passing grade simply because this is a WLW movie appropriate for children and there’s still almost none of those. But the fact that I’m pretty sure its intended audience isn’t actually children is a pretty huge mark against this movie. And whether it was intentional or not, this movie is far too juvenile for an adult viewer. Come Back to Me is cliche and without much personality of its own. It’s occasionally cute but often frustrating. I ended the first movie excited by the possibility of seeing a WLW relationship develop across two movie sequels. I ended Come Back to Me dreading what the third movie will be like given that they’ve definitely run out of ideas and are already reusing cliches.

Overall rating: 5.1/10

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