I have never been much of a religious person, nor do I know much about different faiths that lots of people around the world share. One thing I do know, however, is that Catholicism always ends up the butt of a joke in one way or another but sometimes it can also serve as a critical backdrop for a comedy such as this. Yes, God, Yes is a light-on-its-feet film that challenges the Catholic faith in minor ways that end up feeling major to the audience by the end. With a wonderful performance from Natalia Dyer, this film proves to be one of the most wholly original cumming-of-age (I couldn't help myself) films of recent years. Ever since hearing the praise from its premiere at SXSW, I have been ecstatic about checking it out and I am immensely glad that it did not let me down. There is nothing better than a quick film that touches on one subject incredibly well instead of performing a balancing act of multiple haphazardly and director Karen Maine accomplishes this with the hilarious utmost of ease.
Alice (Natalia Dyer) is a naive, Catholic girl who plans on going to a weekend camp with schoolmates in order to uphold her faith. When she accidentally stumbles into a risqué and overtly sexual AOL chat one afternoon, she instantly becomes interested in the one thing forbidden most: sex. After her involuntary awakening, she starts to notice all of the sexual things around her and struggles to decide whether her new discovery or her faith is more important. Alice as a character is the piece that really drives this film and her journey through exploring herself and the wonders of our bodies as humans was fascinating. There was a great dynamic presented in this film between Alice wanting to experience her sexual desires but feeling pressured not to truly be herself that was spectacular to see and that was embodied by Dyer in the best way possible. Her performance was incredible and she was perfectly cast because of her believable and innocent charm. She was able to really bring her character's innocence to the forefront and I was consistently blown away by her. Yes, God, Yes is a perfect deviation for Dyer from an enormous piece of media like Netflix's Stranger Things and I'm so glad that she was able to be a part of this project and make her talent even more known. The writing and direction from Karen Maine throughout this film shines very brightly and even in her directorial debut, she is able to show off her very idiosyncratic, feminine style. I loved Maine's examination of struggling between faith and individual freedom and whether or not this film was based on personal experiences, she does a great job of making it feel like that. I also really enjoyed how guilt plays a big part of this story. Whether it be in Alice not feeling like she is honoring the lord or the hypocritical leaders at her camp blowing each other and watching porn, the religious setting only pounds this theme in more. And the best part about this film's script is that it is genuinely funny without relying too much on sexual gags or shock content. This film knows how to stay relatively blithe in the face of its Catholically taboo subject and I very much appreciated its lightheartedness.
Although there are no graphic or sexually explicit scenes included in this film, there never really needed to be and Alice's curious nature was enough to depict just that. Maine frames this film incredibly well with the help of cinematographer Todd Antonio Somodevilla and they make sure that the viewer knows just what is happening without the explicit portrayal of such. The technicals throughout this film are nothing incredibly groundbreaking but they work together just right to create this humorous atmosphere. The score from Ian Hultquist was excellent as well and gives this whole story a subtle and subdued energy. Maine's direction, however, was what ties these aspects together and accomplishing this story in an extremely tight 78 minutes is very impressive. This short, creative choice was honestly perfect for this story and I love that no time was wasted meandering around the film's point. Maine's goal was to address the relationship between a horny girl and her devotion to her faith and with really only that one point to make, she successfully creates a lovable world for this protagonist to discover herself within. My only issue with this film is that its translation from short film to feature is incredibly apparent. Maine's writing might do a great job of developing Alice as a character but her direction left a little bit to be desired. Adapted into a feature from its original short film in 2017 (also starring Natalia Dyer), Yes, God, Yes was a bit too reliant on the same structure within its scenes. Every scene at the Catholic camp helped to further Alice as a character but they were all relatively repetitive in terms of its message. They all ended up saying that sex was bad and if you sinned without repenting you would go to hell, but the individual scenes and supporting characters never seemed to grow with Alice. Thankfully with a runtime as short as this one, it never became too large of a problem in this otherwise hysterical and uncomfortably perfect little movie.
Not every story about masturbation and getting turned-on has to necessarily be horny and the humor infused into the filmmaking of Yes, God, Yes proves just that. Maine's directorial debut is simply amazing and I adore how she is able to critique some aspects of the Catholic church while also providing an adorably hilarious story. Accompanied by Dyer's perfectly-cast performance and all of the elements that make a little indie like this so appealing to audiences like me, this film has easily become one of my favorites of this year.
My Rating: ★★★★
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