Yes, God, Yes

Released in 2019. Directed by Karen Maine. Starring Natalia Dyer as Alice.

Here’s the first movie critique since my cannabis-lacking pandemic hiatus! It’s been 8 months since my last review, and a year since publishing my first critique. So I’m putting this catholic girl teen sex comedy on ya.

I will be mentioning plot elements so if you haven’t seen it you will soon find out. The following was written while watching the movie under the influence of cannabis. If you want to know the inspiration behind these critiques then read my announcement →Here←. As you’ll find, I don’t always write about the movie but go on tangents that the movie makes me think about. That’s the whole point of following this pot-produced stream of consciousness. Enjoy.

This article is rated R for Language.

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So basically Natalia brought me in. I didn’t even like her in Stranger Things. She was a cunt. But she drew me in. And I got Saved! vibes from the trailer. Ya know, with Jena Malone and Mandy Moore. A GD classic. I need to watch that again. That gives me straight up college #1 vibes. Like 15 years ago. Omg I’m old. I’m old.

Anyway, I’m drinking Jack Daniels cider with apple cider from the local apple farm, and its like candy. Bottle that up and sell that Trader Joe’s.

Natalia can really play young characters. She’s gotta be like 26 but she looks 16. But the hardest sell is the assclown from Veep who is playing a Catholic priest. A creepy priest teaching sex ed, comparing men to microwaves and women to ovens. The repressiveness of this sex ed. “Masturbating is against god’s plan”. These poor kids. And “sex outside marriage is damnation for all eternity”. What a way for white men to control women. And with a slap of “god is always watching”, like a creepy pervy santa. I don’t want that god. I don’t want your god.

Okay the detailed Titanic reference scene is putting a date on the movie. It’s telling the audience that before that moment it could be anytime, but with that reference you are telling the reader that this is late 90s. Soooo that explains the old school repressive sex ed, or fuck, is that still taught in 2020 at catholic schools? I mean they don’t have the stereotype of the naughty catholic school girl for nothing.

2020, the year of a global pandemic caused by a contagious airborne virus that has killed over a million people worldwide.

2020, the year when the president of the United States said he wouldn’t accept the election results.

2020, the year we lost Black Panther, and James Bond, and the notorious RBG.

2020, the year when people marched for Black lives.

Okay the AOL is another sign of the time. This chat room is taking me back. Did I do stuff like that? And her first time touching herself and the realization. Yeah girl you got your own pleasure machine and all you do is just sit on it and suffocate it all day. It’s like Otis in Sex Education, but the girl version. And it would be too creepy to have an underage actress playing that. You can’t do that.

So she’s gonna get a reputation cause of a rumor. And the teacher is commenting on the rumor, shaming and embarrassing her. And of course they won’t believe her. They’ll take the man’s word. Cause of course women are to blame, they’re just asking for it. The men wouldn’t just take it like a possession to be controlled. They’ll believe him over her and that’s the way it is, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

And that Nokia. Damn, yeah I had one too.

This church retreat is giving me straight up [redacted] vibes. I went on so many church retreats. And that’s exactly what we called them, retreats. Do youth groups still do stuff like that? Do people still go on trips together? God that would be so sad if people didn’t get to experience that. Or how it would be different now cause you wouldn’t be able to get teens away from their phones. I mean can you even imagine taking a teen’s phone away for two days? They’d probably stop breathing. They’d prob start to have phantom pains in their hands, their fingers typing with their thumbs in their sleep. Or the up and down motion of the back of the right forefinger as you scroll your feed.

God they are feeling the teenage girl sex angst. That slow remix of “Genie in a bottle,” and the close up of her unibrow, the unplucked eyebrows of the pubescent. And that shot of her feeling his arm hair-that was freaky deeky.

She’s really good at looking innocent, but also naughty.

Like her scratch and mark-through isn’t noticeable and going to draw attention.

The retreat has a cafeteria? Nah, we made our own food or that’s what the chaperones were for.

God I miss those carefree times.

I think if someone saw my videos they’d just thing I am a really nice person. Happy, passionate, genuine.

God this testimony is tragic.

I couldn’t tell if it was yellow cake, the light was dim. How classic is yellow cake with chocolate frosting tho? Birthday cake, Matilda style.

And now I have to watch Girlfriends till my mom leaves and I can go back to watching the catholic girl teen sex comedy.

Using her phone on vibrate to masturbate, that’s clever, and desperate.

The embarrassing group circle swaying and singing to a song, so cheesy. Plus, he so looks like he would slam his 10 inches into her.

She falls down just to get him to carry her, a conniving little scamp.

She is being punished for keeping her phone.

And the small groups. I lived for small groups. I loved them.

Her learning all the ways to get him to touch her, like falling and crying.

The inquisition, one-on-one with the priest. The priest asking her if she’s ever felt turned on — soooo creepy. See and he doesn’t believe her when she said someone made it up. He called her a liar, saying she was being dishonest.

I like how they turned the music up in the scene, and how she almost got caught by the nun.

Oh damn, she kisses him and he gets a boner. He acts all innocent and runs away like he doesn’t want it. Acts like she seduced him.

And now she’s running away? Damn and the wine coolers. That hits home. Oh to when I was a rebel christian and drank Smirnoff Ices in high school and got my friend’s bf to get me cigarettes. Oh yeah, I was real bad. And the closest anyone got to hitting on me was a guy saying that I was sassy and he likes sassy. That and Billy calling to ask me out and I ignore the voicemail. What a jerk I was, and a bully. And my friends deserted me senior year, didn’t invite me to things, said mean things about me behind my back, and I was oblivious. And it started a trend of friends abruptly leaving me and not talking to me anymore. Blindsided, over and over. But I always prided myself in being a good friend. I’m loyal, thoughtful, considerate.

Won’t they be looking for her?

I like how they end the movie with Mandy Moore’s song “Candy” cause it supports how I said this was like Mandy Moore’s movie Saved! Probably was very inspired by it, so this is a nice homage to Mandy.

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Next review found →HERE←

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Carmen Saint James is a performance artist and the author of The Psychotropic Journals & Volume II. You can check out her latest writings, videos, and photography on her website, youtube channel, and Instagram @carmensaintjames.