"Some Good Qualities, Very Small Story"
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What You Need To Know:
YELLOW DAY says, “Jesus will help you,” but it sorely needs to do so in action, rather than voiceovers and dialogue. The main characters are quite likable. It has some wonderful qualities and families may enjoy it, but it’s more like something you’d show at summer camp to a group of middle school campers than a theatrical release competing against major Hollywood fare.
Content:
(CCC, BBB, V, M) Very strong Christian worldview with no foul language, sex or nudity and strong messages of forgiveness, faith, trust, and perseverance; some dialogue about family violence and a fatal drunk-driving incident; no alcohol use; no smoking or drugs; and, some dishonesty about people’s actual names.
More Detail:
YELLOW DAY is a very clean, family movie with a story too small for the production values. YELLOW DAY tries to convey strong Christian values in a story about a boy looking for a girl who he hoped would be at a summer camp.
YELLOW DAY opens with some of the most beautiful title lettering you’ll ever see and has a nicely animated pre-story about a man inspired to establish a summer camp. Unlike UP, where Pixar presented a heartrending background story with only music and images, YELLOW DAY tells the story in voice over.
From its animated opening, YELLOW DAY then goes into beautifully shot live action of a boy, going by a false name, searching a summer camp for a girl he had met when they were accidentally locked overnight together in a church. The story bounces between him being helped with his search by a young girl camper and flashbacks to the night he met the girl of his dreams. This is intercut with animated images of him as a knight wandering around either happy or sad. In the course of all the talking to one another, the couple learns about each other’s talents and tragedies.
YELLOW DAY says, “Jesus will help you,” but it sorely needs to do so in action, rather than voiceovers and dialogue. The filmmakers display some very admirable skills in lighting and photography. Also, the main characters are quite likable. Some scenes are even artistically labeled with real script points like “The Great Challenge Revealed,” “The Quest Begins” and “Darkest Night of the Soul.” The problem is that such important script points should be felt by audiences, not read in animated chapter titles.
YELLOW DAY has some wonderful qualities and families may enjoy it, but it’s more like something you’d show at summer camp to a group of middle school campers than a theatrical release out to compete with Hollywood fare.
Clearly, some of the people involved have tremendous talent but before starting a movie the very foundation needs to be a story that’s worth a $12 ticket price. Great storytelling is remarkably rare and valuable. It makes movies like THE BLIND SIDE soar into the box office stratosphere.
Movieguide® wishes well the makers of YELLOW DAY. Their movie is clean and filled with Christian values like forgiveness, trust and perseverance.
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