The authors of Yes God Yes (2019) turned to the study of the difficulties of puberty.
Chris Columbus (Home Alone, three episodes of the Harry Potter franchise) is producing and Karen Maine is directing.
Plot
1999 The peak of popularity of the blockbuster “Titanic”, the dawn of the Internet. Catholic boarding school high school student Alice (Natalie Dyer) is more than anything afraid of going to hell for not being able to resist watching another video of Leonardo DiCaprio making love to Kate Winslet.
She is a diligent parishioner, does not miss church services, confesses to the priest in her sinful interest in film erotica. Everything that she knows positive about relationships with the opposite sex, she received from the “Titanic”. At the same time, her mature body actively reacts to all external stimuli, noticing the forbidden in everything, even trying to get a bit of pleasure from a mop.
With her best friend, she is going to spend the weekend at a Christian summer camp. Peculiar pedagogical methods, enhanced by the rage of hormones, force the girl to go through temptations, to which she either resists or gives in with enthusiasm.
The meaning of the film
Location: an educational institution with very specific and rigid behavioral attitudes. Sex is dangerous for the soul, spiritual aspirations should be directed to the Supreme Being, about which its adherents know for sure what He likes and dislikes and for which He will surely punish severely. Question: can these visible and invisible fetters prevent normal puberty with everything that accompanies it?
The final conclusion can be considered an obvious rethinking of the views learned in a closed (including from new trends) school. This opens the position of the director: growing up is directly related to sexual experience. No prohibitions will prevent nature from taking its toll. And those who claim otherwise are actually concerned about the same thing.
Characteristics of heroes
The inexperienced heroine seems to be still a girl among mature classmates. This is because she is just beginning to explore her sexuality, and most of her peers (it’s easy to guess) already have knowledge in this area and behave much more liberated. Except that Gina (Susan Blackwell) is also afraid of hell for looking at her father’s swimwear magazine.
Father Murphy (Timothy S. Simons) looks very charismatic, offering his flock not to run away from age issues, but to understand them. It is not difficult for him to guess in each ward his specific irritant. He has assistants. One of them, Nina (Alisha Boe), is empowered to give the newcomer a symbol of her downfall — a slice of a popular treat: “We pretend that every marshmallow is a specific mortal sin, and then we burn it. Your marshmallow is lust.”
Most sympathetic is the wise Miss Veda (Donna Lynn Champlin), informing young Catholic women: “Your body is a gift from God.”
Having acquired the necessary theoretical training, Alice is already quite confidently moving towards the fulfillment of her desires, which she has focused on an athletic handsome man (Wolfgang Novogratz). As a result, school morality suffers an obvious defeat. But God, as you know, is not mocked. And indulging their desires, the heroes still count on the fact that they do not offend Him by this. Or maybe it suits him perfectly? Then it remains only to exclaim: “Yes, God, yes!”.
Conclusion
The picture is quite consistent with the canons of the Hollywood youth-school comedy, in which it is customary to laugh good-naturedly at youthful inexperience and recklessness.
By the end, the protagonist acquires the necessary knowledge of life, sometimes with some painful sensations, but generally without harm to health.
As you watch, “American Pie”, “Easy A” and something from “Lady Bird” come to mind. That’s when it turns out that the highlight of the film (the influence of the moralist Chris Columbus?) is that juvenile problems are presented in relation to eternal truths, which, if they are imposed, do not take root well in teenage consciousness, but (it turns out!) Are already there, not at all preventing teenagers from being themselves.
