South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
An enlightening look at Catholic girl’s education
I remember so little about my own Catholic high school junior-year retreat, except that the religious discussions didn’t have a chance up against the severity of everyone’s crushes. That’s my memory of it, anyway.
And so it goes with the sharp, clear-eyed comingof-age comedy “Yes, God, Yes.” Written and directed by Karen Maine, who co-wrote the pungent Jenny Slate showcase “Obvious Child,” it’s based on Maine’s own experiences growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, near the end of her 12 years of Catholic school.
The Facets Virtual Cinema offering premiering July 24 is one of this summer’s worthwhile comedies: small but very sure, and guided beautifully throughout by Natalia Dyer of “Stranger Things.”
The time is 19 or 20 years ago. The first sound you hear in “Yes, God, Yes” is that horrible AOL dialup noise. At home after school, 16-year-old Alice goes online to join a movie trivia chat room. Abruptly she finds herself in a would-be cybersex encounter with someone posting photos of “himself ” and “his wife.”
This is perplexing new territory for a good Catholic girl, even one who is questioning things while her classmates appear to fully on board with “God’s plan.” Much of this efficiently paced story takes place on a four-day junior year retreat. Alice brings along a load of unseen, unwanted baggage; lately she suffered some humiliating gossip regarding her alleged slutting-around with a boy who already has a girlfriend.
This is the reputation
Natalia Dyer plays a Catholic school student making all sorts of tricky new discoveries in “Yes, God, Yes.”
MPAA rating: R (for sexual content and some nudity)
Running time: 1:18
Premieres: July 24-Aug. 6, Facets Virtual Cinema; $9.99/48-hr. rental; $14.99 purchase. Go to facets.org for more streaming information.
accompanying Alice on retreat, though her dreamy preoccupation with the forearms of a particular, slightly older retreat leader (Wolfgang Novogratz) takes up most of her imaginative life. Portrayed as a batch of sweet-natured contradictions by Dyer, Alice follows her curiosity where it takes her. The early era of online smut provides the backdrop in Maine’s character study. The many characters lightly but deftly sketched here, in Maine’s feature debut, have secrets to keep, mostly unsuccessfully.
The details feel precise and authentic, from the abstinence-only posters in the school hallway to Alice and Laura’s betweenclasses banter at the lockers (“Have you had to watch the partial-birth abortion video yet?,” one asks, brightly). Various coming-of-age films have located their themes at the three-way intersection of religious, sex and moral
education. Many of these are treated for broad comedy, or hindered by dismissible, subhuman antagonists. “Yes, God, Yes” is a different, and better, sort of intersection story. (Related viewing, in a bittersweet key: Chicago-based writer-director Stephen Cone’s “The Wise Kids,” which is terrific.)
The project started out as Maine’s 11-minute 2017 short film of the same name, which also starred Dyer. Some of the lines carry over from the earlier version, notably the Morality class instructor’s description of horny teenage boys as “microwave ovens,” versus girls, the needier “conventional ovens” of the species. In several scenes, the camera stays close to Dyer’s dazzling array of expressions at the computer keyboard, while Alice processes the latest rabbit hole or interior dilemma. Maine knows a pitch-perfect performance when she sees one.
The film runs a mere 73 minutes without its end credits. While I could’ve used more, that too is a sign of talent, not deficiency.
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.