Vertical Entertainment
There’s something satisfying about discovering hypocrisy, whether it’s among the highly conservative anti-gay crusaders turning out to be closeted themselves, or the far more common type encountered in pop culture. It’s a bit of a trope, when the person being judgemental to our heroes is in fact as ‘bad’ as they are. But done well, even when expected, it’s a freeing feeling, knowing that the protagonist can finally break free.
Yes, God, Yes comes from writer-director Karen Maine in her first feature film (she is known otherwise for writing the Jenny Slate vehicle Obvious Child), and stars Stranger Things’ Natalia Dyer as high schooler Alice. The movie takes place sometime in the very early 2000s in a typical Midwest town, but it starts following Alice in her Catholic high school.
The movie wastes no time in showing us the classic style of ‘abstinence only’ sex education where even ‘self-love’ is demonized (literally — it is explicitly stated that such actions are Hell-worthy). So naturally Alice is a confused teen, made worse when a rumor starts circulating about Alice and another boy, Wade, about a particular sexual act at some past event. Alice doesn’t even know what it means, and this is in the era where finding information on the Internet wasn’t so easy — and Alice only has access to AOL anyway, which was always highly gated.
I mean, technically speaking, UrbanDictionary was around in 1999 and Wikipedia started in 2001, but Alice is not portrayed as exactly the most technical or worldly type. Almost accidentally while in a chat with a random pervert online, she begins to discover masturbation but in her world, this is an evil thing. So she leaves for a summer (or something) retreat connected to the school, a religious camp of sorts, hoping for repentance.
But there things get more complicated, as hints of something else keep reappearing, and the rumor follows her there. The priest running things (Timothy Simons) is not remotely understanding, and she feels isolated. When Alice notices a tall, handsome boy leading things, it only stirs things further, and her journey to self-discovery jumps into high gear.
One of things that’s often a bit annoying about period pieces (and I count Stranger Things among this list) is that the historicity can be a bit inconsistent and sometimes more the ‘idea’ of the era instead of the truth of it. There are even worse instances where the period makes no difference, and it’s just an excuse for something to stand out in the crowd. But in this movie, it really does make sense — it was indeed the perfect time for someone to use the Internet to discover such things before the Facebook era.
The actual dialogue is fairly sparing, and Karen Maine spends a lot of time on Natalie Dyer’s highly expressive face, her reactions, her internal emotions, her confusion and growth. Alice feels like a particularly well-realized character, and you don’t feel cheated that her story wraps up in the end.
There are a lot of fun little choices that the director makes that add to the comedy, and the movie doesn’t take it easy on how awful teenagers (or adults) can be. It’s not like it’s a big takedown of religious conservatism or hypocrisy, just showing one example of it — Alice is worse off ignorant and held back, the movie makes it crystal clear (with a classic scene of a wise woman explaining things) that knowledge and self-discovery are the better paths.
Although I liked Obvious Child fine, I thought the script there was pretty underwhelming — as a ‘message’ movie it was too much message, not enough movie. And it wasn’t very funny, a problem for a comedy-drama movies, but Yes, God, Yes does it all — it puts a smile on your face, even when it’s being obvious in its messaging. Natalia Dyer is really great here, doing something that’s not just yet another horror thing (which unfortunately seems to be her next project).
Ultimately, the movie just felt satisfying and it was a brisk 88 minutes, so it’ll be over right when you wanted to see a bit more.
Yes, God, Yes has a run time of 1 hour 18 minutes and is rated R for sexual content and some nudity.
Share this post
