Yes, God, Yes

A great coming of age story. Natalia is a perfect fit for the role.

Being homeschooled and a christian growing up in a very humble lifestyle and household, I appreciate the message they were trying to get across in this movie. You grow up with so many restrictions and when you're out of that fearful environment it truly is a wake up call. Knowing that people have been doing what you have been forbidden to do for years and they are alright. I like seeing movies like this where I can relate somewhat to the plot. It wasn't really amazing or the best movie I've seen but it was a good message I think. I have absolutely no idea why it was rated R since it was pretty tame for what else comes out these days but maybe I'm wrong? Anyway I loved Natalia Dryer, even though she's well in her twenties, she can still pull off a teenager pretty well.

Disappointing that it's sort of just another coming of age movie, taking the tropes and side characters that you usually see in those movies and using them pretty ordinarily here. With the premise it had, I really wish it had been funnier, crazier, edgier, or just a little less predictable.

It falls into that annoying category of dramadies where it's neither particularly funny or particularly dramatic (I call it Entourage Syndrome, named after how lazy that show could be when it frequently didn't commit to either comedy or drama).

Most of the performances are okay, and the brief length keeps it from being too dull, but it was a slight disappointment, even if not bad.

Oh: and it doesn't capture the time period nearly as well as something like Ladybird. Sorry to compare it to that, but overall that was a much faster, funnier, more emotional, and far better paced movie in general.

The writer/director Karen Maine went to a Catholic school in Iowa and made this movie based on her own experiences there in the 11th grade. I didn't attend a Catholic school but grew up being taught Catechism by Priests and Nuns so I can identify with a lot of it.

The movie points out a truth about religious education in general, the use of fear to try to motivate teenagers to stay on the straight and narrow. Watch porn and you'll go to hell. Masturbate and you'll go to hell. Lose your virginity and you'll go to hell. The problem with that approach is eventually kids get to a point where they realize what is going on and all that goes for naught.

Yet somehow most of us grow up to be good, moral people. And that is sort of the punchline of this story.

I watched it at home on DVD from my public library, my wife skipped.

Karen Maine's Yes, God, Yes won me over for its slice of 2000s nostalgia and the way it portrayed some very relatable things in the lives of teenagers of those times. The story is a little too simplistic, and it doesn't try to bite off more than it can chew. In that sense, the film's climax probably won't seem too revolutionary when viewed in 2020 where 'sinning' is more of an innuendo than something religious.

There are some predictable turns, there are some funny moments, there's a little sexual exploration (something the film could have dwelled more on, given its theme), and there's a neat central performance from Natalia Dyer. For a 25-year-old playing a high-school teenager, I really enjoyed her adorable facial expressions for the most part. The film's only 77 minutes long, so it doesn't take up much of your time in telling a straightforward, unsurprising story.