#yesgodyes

[whimsiigal]

me

[kajillionaire]

yes god yes (2019), dir. karen maine

[charliejrogers]

Yes, God, Yes

Full disclosure: I not only attended a Catholic high school, but I specifically attended a Kairos retreat, the exact retreat which the characters from 2020’s Yes, God, Yes attend. In the film, they call it “Kirkos,” but everything about “Kirkos” is the same as my (and seemingly every) Kairos. So let me clear up a few things for those of you who saw this film and thought, “This shit at this movie retreat can’t be what they do in real life.” Yes, Kairos leaders really do collect your phone and watch upon arrival to the retreat center since you are now on “God’s time ”(kairos comes from the Greek word καιρός which literally means “God’s time”). Yes, you are forced into small groups with your other classmates and feel this weird pressure to have a sad life story to share. Yes, small group leaders start to play music while they tell their own story AND pass out the lyrics as if these song lyrics are real deep poetry. One of my retreat leaders, for example, handed out sheets of the lyrics to Florence + The Machine’s “Shake it Off.” Now, I LIKE Florence + The Machine, but even still the lyrics to that song are nothing special. And, most of all, yes, those who come back from Kairos do tend to act a little cultish. At our school it was referred to as having a “Kai high,” a feeling in time when everyone just wants to be friends yet those people only exclusively hang out with one another.

In defense of Kairos retreats, at their very best, they offer adolescents at a critical time in their development the opportunity to reflect on their lives thus far, evaluate if they are living out the values their parents and community have instilled in them, and give them a safe space to work through conflicts, apologize, and try to be better people. At their worst, it’s a self-congratulatory experience where people act morally superior to others without really doing anything substantial… or even worse it’s a period of time where adolescents might unearth and talk about really hard topics like suicide, depression, etc. for the first time… and yet are given no real guidance on how to handle those emotions outside of this four day experience!

All this said, this is not a review of Kairos retreat. It is, indeed, a film review. I just wanted to make clear my biases etc. before talking about it since the retreat does more than provide the setting for the majority of Yes, God, Yes: the retreat’s four-day thematic structure doubles as the film’s plot structure. Just as in real life, our protagonist does a lot of questioning about her life and her faith during her first day, does some “crying” during the second as people, “accepting/trusting” the third, and then “living out” the lessons she learned on the fourth day and beyond! The difference is that in real life, teens are supposed to do these things in regard to their faith... or protagonist across those four days has a genuine sexual awakening.

In fact it’s exactly the desire to suppress her sexuality that prompts our protagonist to go on the retreat in the first place. Because our protagonist, Alice (played by Stranger Things’ Natalia Dyer), has just discovered something about herself that is hard to put out of her mind: she likes sex! Or, more specifically, likes masturbating. Alice is, from what we can tell in the prologue, a pretty by-the-books Catholic teen. She follows the rules, goes to Church with her Dad every Sunday, and os pretty sexually naïve… sheltered as we used to describe kids. Someone starts a rumor that Alice “tossed” a boy’s “salad” at a party and the rumor spreads like wildfire. Even the teachers know about it, and she loses her status as a gift bearer for the school’s weekly Mass. Of course, Alice doesn’t even know what “tossing salad” means (nor truthfully did I… but the movie seems to anticipate this by providing a definition to the audience at the very beginning of the film.)

All Alice knows is that she likes arm hair… like LIKES arm hair, something she discovers when she’s on an AOL chat room and someone sends her porn. That’s right, this is a film set in the early ‘00s, so if you hold any nostalgia for that time, get ready to have your fill from the era’s cheesy pop ballads to giant brick phones, to the fact that America (while starting to be so) wasn’t so health conscious that’s it not crazy to believe a teenage girl would just come home from school and snack on frosting and a giant bowl of Cheetoh’s Puffs. The nostalgia is not quite as in your face as in Captain Marvel, but it’s certainly more of a focus than it was in Lady Bird.

Yeah, you knew the comparison was coming. Let’s just be clear, this is by no means trying to be the next Lady Bird. This movie knows it’s pretty frivolous to begin with. Still, it’s hard to avoid comparison with the last big movie about a Catholic girl coming of age in the early 2000s. What I learned in watching this movie compared to Lady Bird or even Boyhood is that merely recreating aspects of my former life does not a good movie make. While I loved the fact that part of watching Lady Bird was getting to see someone shine a light on how ridiculous high school theater could be, that was never the point of the movie. Here, meanwhile, a significant purpose of the film is to highlight the fact that, yes, Kairos retreats are weird and the Church sucks. While I found myself nodding my head in agreement with what I was seeing on screen… it wasn’t exactly enjoyment as much as thinking, “yup, this is what a Kairos retreat is.” Furthermore, I feel like there are aspects of Kairos that would be great for skewering and I love the parts they absolutely nail: the cultish nature of the retreat and the pressure to frame your life in a sad way… but they ultimately take a route of criticism that is too easy and frankly is not a focus of most Kairos retreats… the focus on shaming one’s sexuality and the innate hypocrisy that behavior inevitably reveals.

If there’s a villain in this film, it’s probably the retreat leader and school priest Fr. Murphy (Timothy Simons), who gives in to rumors of Alice’s sexual impropriety as much as any schoolyard bully. No one in this whole film, from Fr. Murphy, to the head of Alice’s bunkhouse, to her small group leader, to even her best friend, takes Alice’s spiritual journey seriously, as they all assume Alice is not taking the retreat seriously as she seems to be avoiding talking about her recent, rumorous activity. Of course, there’s a bit of #MeToo hypocrisy here in that the male with whom Alice is said to have been engaged with enjoys none of the backlash that she has been dealing with. And to that degree it’s a satisfying movie in that Alice gets to dish out a little #MeToo revenge.

Still, even with all things conspiring against her, Alice retains her good spirit throughout the film… as well as her determination to further explore her sexuality. On the one hand, it’s a little unrealistic the risks she takes in trying to learn more about her body, but on the other hand teenagers and young adults are friggin’ weird when it comes to figuring out themselves. Ultimately she is emboldened in this take once she finds out that all those people who are out to get her to confess her “sins” are sinners in much the same way.

Probably the best scene comes at the end of Alice’s third day of the retreat when she runs away from the retreat center and walks into a lesbian bar where she hears the story of someone who used to be Catholic and is now not. More important than anything she could learn at the retreat, this Iowa girl learns that some normal people… just don’t have a religion. For some people this world, its pleasures, its pains, is more than enough. Alice doesn’t become a full-blown hedonist after this, but she is opened up to realize there’s more to life than Catholic guilt.

Perhaps to make this good message ring out, the film as a whole, despite some absurdist elements, feels like it’s meant to be a somewhat accurate reflection of reality. I wish the writer/director, Karen Maine had tried for a slightly more absurdist approach or taken out the absurdity altogether. She already makes the Catholic high school authority more caricature than character, and the plot at timesis almost silly. Therefore, the tone of the movie just sorta feels off throughout. Just about the only thing keeping this movie grounded is a great performance by Dyer who portrays a genuine sexual awakening very faithfully, capturing the mix of confusion, guilt, and excitement all at once. Even when Alice does something downright stupid, Dyer’s performance engenders our trust from the start, and we are always on her side. I wish I could have liked this movie more as it really does accurately portray some aspects of a Kairos retreat and is about as close as I think I’ll get to having it portrayed in a major film, but ultimately by not treating the Church authority with the same amount of nuance paid to Dyer’s Alice and her sexual awakening, the film ends up being an enjoyable, if one-noted, experience. Come to make fun of Catholics, stay for Dyer’s performance.

 **7/8 (Two and seven-eighths out of four stars)

[alohaitsjill]

Yes, God, Yes dir. Karen Maine (2019)

[twistedtwinsproductions]

The Boulet Brothers are gracing VANCOUVER this year!!! This is not a test!!! Shit just got REAL. Who else is coming to the Vancouver show?? 🖤🖤🖤 #BouletBrothers #Dragula #YesGodYes https://www.instagram.com/p/CoNf23FvldYzbw1jRz6SoXhvp5p5NKyaF8eQd80/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[moosj-posts]

Yes, God, Yes (2019)

Yes, God, Yes (2019)

Yes, God, Yes (2019)

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[adamwatchesmovies]

Yes, God, Yes (2020)

The obvious direction Yes, God, Yes could’ve gone is the comedic route. It also had equal potential as a highly critical drama. Writer/director Karen Maine finds the delicate balance in between. This coming-of-age story has plenty of laughs and offers a little bit of food for thought too. I can think of a lot of people who will recognize themselves in this film like I did.

15-year-old Alice (Natalia Dyer) goes to a Catholic high school, meaning her sex-ed class consists of “it’s only done once you’re married, and the only objective is procreation”. She struggles to make sense of the inklings of sexual desire developing inside her. Attending the school’s 3-day weekend retreat both increase her confusion and provides several unexpected temptations.

What makes the movie funny is Alice’s blessed ignorance. She might’ve never seen any pornography, have any idea what masturbation is like, or understand what "tossing a salad means" but her classmates, teachers, and we do. She makes you laugh in an "it's so cute you don't know" kind of way but you also sympathize. We’ve all been there at one point or another. Seeing this young woman slowly figure things out brings you back to simpler times. You're chuckling at yourself too because as hard as things might've been back then, it turned out alright in the end. Her ignorance lands her in a couple of scenarios where she has to scramble to not get caught or avoid suspicion and that’s a lot of fun to watch.

Despite the wacky scenarios, Yes, God, Yes always remains grounded. Like her, I remember the first time I saw Titanic. Everyone around me said that moment where the guy falls and hits the propeller was the best scene. I had a different moment in mind but never wanted to admit it out loud. I also remember less-than-stellar sex ed classes that left me with a lot of questions I was too embarrassed to ask. It deals with the hypocrisy you’ll experience from many of the people who talk about abstinence as the only solution to your growing desires without being mean-spirited about it. You expect Alice to be shocked. What's more interesting is that a lot of the stuff she sees, she likes even if she doesn't understand why.

The movie is honest but doesn’t feel so autobiographical to be elusive to anyone watching. The performances are spot-on, as is dialogue, setting, and relationships. Yes, God, Yes is only 78 minutes long and that’s perfect. If it went on for more, there’d be sub-plots about closeted students/staff members who feel ostracized, we’d probably get some big but phony laughs at the expense of Alice’s parents, and escalating shocks and gross-outs, all of which would ultimately add nothing. As a directorial debut, Karen Maine has made a great impression. You're left with nuggets of wisdom, a smile on your face, and a warm feeling inside. (January 17, 2021)

[filmsnobreviews]

Check out our review of “Yes, God, Yes”. After an innocent AOL chat turns racy, a Catholic teenager in the early 00s discovers masturbating and struggles to suppress her new urges in the face of eternal damnation. #movie #film #cinema #filmsdirectedbywomen #yesgodyes #nataliedyer #indiefilm #independentfilm #moviereview #filmsnobreviews https://www.instagram.com/p/CFVtOAllTlV/?igshid=k6198cxckc20