Yes Day

Parenting has some unprecedented challenges in the social-media age, so attacking Yes Day on the validity of its premise might feel like an eye-rolling case of intergenerational ignorance.

There are plenty of other ways to condemn this collection of low-brow mayhem and wacky montages from director Miguel Arteta (Like a Boss) that winds up more obnoxious than endearing. In other words, it’s a firm “no.”

The film opens by detailing the evolution of Allison (Jennifer Garner) and Carlos (Edgar Ramirez) from impulsive and fun-loving newlyweds to strict suburban parents. Especially in Allison’s case, the three children — including teenage daughter Katie (Jenna Ortega) and rambunctious younger brother Nando (Julian Lerner) — begin to resent the overprotective rules.

To become more progressive, the couple reluctantly decides to institute a “yes day,” during which the youngsters make the rules and the grown-ups must respond affirmatively to every suggestion.

It’s not long before they’re playing superhero dress-up, going through the car wash with the windows down, engaging in massive water-balloon fights, and starting hijinks at an amusement park.

Of course, things get out of hand quickly, so there are obligatory visits to the hospital and the jail, and a massive sing-along when everybody learns the requisite lessons about responsibility and boundaries in the most contrived way possible.

Is the concept of a “yes day,” which evidently is a real thing, meant as a reward for good behavior or a bribe? Either way, the exaggerated screenplay by Justin Malen (Father Figures) explores good cop/bad cop family dynamics with half-hearted sincerity.

These sorts of movie families seem to exist only in broad, formulaic comedies such as this, where the adorably precocious kiddos outwit and humiliate the hapless adults, who always have one-liners at the ready as they’re being sprayed in the face or kicked in the crotch. But in this instance, since mom and dad have signed off, apparently it’s all good.

The film manages some scattered laughs — including a scene-stealing turn from Nat Faxon as a beleaguered guidance counselor — and at least Garner and Ramirez are having fun.

If only parenting was this simple. By the time Nando exclaims, “this is the funnest day ever,” you’ll realize that’s not the case because you’re already set through most of Yes Day.

Rated PG, 89 minutes.