Yes, God, Yes
Directed by: Karen Maine
Written by: Karen Maine
Starring: Natalia Dyer, Francesca Reale, Timothy Simons, Alisha Boe, Wolfgang Novogratz, Susan Blackwell, Donna Lynne Champlin, Parker Wierling
Drama - 78 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 21 Jul 2020
Written by: Karen Maine
Starring: Natalia Dyer, Francesca Reale, Timothy Simons, Alisha Boe, Wolfgang Novogratz, Susan Blackwell, Donna Lynne Champlin, Parker Wierling
Drama - 78 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 21 Jul 2020
On the surface, Yes, God, Yes is a typical teenage coming-of-age tale where an impressionable, young woman experiences a stuttering sexual awakening. The twist is the awakening occurs smack in the middle of Jesus camp. Between all the group bonding experiences about how everyone feels close to God, most of them are feeling closer to their horny peers. This is not the first film to confront the hypocrisy inherent in organized religions’ shame culture, a situation taken far more seriously in the recent Boy Erased, but Yes, God, Yes is the quirky, twee version of that particular conversion nightmare. The consequences of failing to "fake it till you make it" are not as life shattering if you do not meet expectations here. Rather than receive the frank sex education our protagonist desperately requires, she meanders through misunderstandings, both innocent and malicious, in an attempt to discern whether or not the burning in her nether regions will lead her to the biblical lake of fire.
“Remember, God is always watching you.” This perturbs Alice (Natalia Dyer, Velvet Buzzsaw), whose deepest perversity so far is rewinding the sex scene from Titanic - just how are Leo and Kate steaming up those backseat windows? Alice attends Catholic school where health class is priest led. Rather than learning the ins and outs of STDs and how to protect themselves from what they will encounter in the real world, the students process that their bodies are “a gift from God” and that “it is against God’s plan” to even imagine what it can do before marriage. In the year’s immediately preceding full-on search engines and ubiquitous internet porn, these kids are ripe to be led astray.
“Remember, God is always watching you.” This perturbs Alice (Natalia Dyer, Velvet Buzzsaw), whose deepest perversity so far is rewinding the sex scene from Titanic - just how are Leo and Kate steaming up those backseat windows? Alice attends Catholic school where health class is priest led. Rather than learning the ins and outs of STDs and how to protect themselves from what they will encounter in the real world, the students process that their bodies are “a gift from God” and that “it is against God’s plan” to even imagine what it can do before marriage. In the year’s immediately preceding full-on search engines and ubiquitous internet porn, these kids are ripe to be led astray.
Writer/director Karen Maine says she set her film in the early 2000s. I guessed late ‘90s, but I suppose technology moved slower back then from the coasts before it invaded the interior. Alice has a rudimentary cell phone, but nobody texts yet. AOL still dominates home access and the allure of chat rooms wait for any and all teenagers to venture in for the the inevitable corruption. Alice starts to overhear murmurs and snickers behind her back that she did something to her secret crush. “She tossed his salad.” Alice has no idea what this means. For all she knows, it is something culinary. Remember, this is before the answer could be found in two seconds flat. Apparently, private religious schools are as horrible for backstabbing gossip as their public school counterparts.
Also, some kids return from a church retreat with new necklaces which sets them apart as an “elite” group - they now have a superior relationship with the Almighty. Alice, as competitive as anyone else to curry favor with the ethereal, signs up for the next retreat. So begins a long weekend of boy crazy hijinks, jealousies, infighting, and the realization that even the supposed most holy among us is just as confused and nefarious as the worst of us. Anybody watching the film who is over 30 will already know these lessons, but teenagers who may identify with Alice may well glean something from Maine’s message.
Yes, God, Yes is a feature-length version of a short film. At 78 minutes, the product still feels threadbare and most likely works better in the tighter edit. Maine co-wrote the short film and story that 2014’s Obvious Child was based on and there are similarities of young women confronting their ‘womanhood’ for the first time. However, Yes, God, Yes lacks most of Obvious Child’s witty punch and deeper meaning. Once we realize Alice’s adventures may at most culminate in a revealing soliloquy, the enjoyment descends from basic into disappointing. Not much translates from Dyer’s furrowed brow other than continued uncertainty and the growing acknowledgement that Yes, God, Yes may be nothing more than a long-form, above average after school special. No, you’re not going to hell because you rewind the Titanic sex scene.
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