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YES, GOD, YES
Director: Karen Maine Cast: Natalia Dyer, Timothy Simons, Wolfgang Novogratz, Francesca Reale, Alisha Boe, Susan Blackwell, Parker Wierling, Donna Lynne Champlin MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:18 Release Date: 7/24/20 (limited; virtual cinema); 7/28/20 (digital & on-demand) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 23, 2020 Early and often in Yes, God, Yes, Alice (Natalia Dyer), a good Catholic girl, is told that all sex outside of marriage is a damnable sin—even if it's a solo act. Writer/director Karen Maine's debut feature, then, is a teen sex comedy, but it's cleverly framed as one about self-fulfillment. There's the question of what Alice is and isn't willing to sacrifice for her faith, and then there's the more physical, intimate kind of self-fulfillment. The film, based on Maine's 2017 short of the same name, is a cheeky and amusing dissection of guilt, hypocrisy, and other such foundations of religion. It displays genuine knowledge and understanding of the judgmental atmosphere and gossipy politics of its setting, a Catholic high school and an extension of it, that are critical but never condemning. There's already enough of that going around in this place. Alice, who is naïve about matters of sex (She only knows what the school teaches, which is not much and mostly negative, and a little bit from the movies), has an awakening while chatting with a horny stranger online (The story is set around the turn of the millennium, so the likely insidiousness of this interaction is glossed over). Afraid of her lustful feelings and being the subject of a sexual rumor around school, Alice decides to attend a school-sponsored religious retreat at a camp in the woods, hoping to make friends and figure out things. Her plans fall apart, though. Alice continues to explore her feelings, while poorly trying to hide them from schoolmates and a priest (played by Timothy Simons), who seems to know a bit too much about the students' urges and the gossip surrounding them. The rumors continue, increase, and spread, leading to more curiosity, more punishment, and more certainty of being bound for hell. There's not much more to the story, but Maine's screenplay is sharp and knowing about Alice's conflict between her obligations to her religion and the natural impulses of adolescence (Dyer clearly comprehends this, too, and her performance is charmingly innocent). Yes, God, Yes, though, really understands the air of shame and blame that fills this setting, as well as how those harmful ideas are constantly reinforced and multiply—a cycle of personal guilt assuming or inventing the guilt of other people. The film is funny but with an unnerving sense of authenticity. Copyright © 2020 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for
sexual content and some nudity)
