To heighten the viewer’s perception of just how “1999” Yes, God, Yes is, the closing credits winkingly play Mandy Moore’s debut single, “Candy.” The tie-in here feels subliminal, for Moore herself was in a sardonic movie about the hypocrisies of religion: Saved! Released in 2004, Moore (herself raised Catholic) plays the “good Christian girl” Hilary Faye Stockard. There’s more than a few of her kind in Karen Maine’s film, bearing the same wry humor she showcased in 2014’s Obvious Child. But the clear “Mary Cummings (Jena Malone)” of the situation is Alice (Stranger Things’ Natalia Dyer), increasingly eroticized by just about everything thanks to her suppression of normal teenage horniness as a result of what her Catholic school has indoctrinated her to believe.
The psychological effects of the severity of these teachings is presaged by the opening title card: “As for the faithless and the sexually immoral–their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” Yes, this quote from the New Testament’s Book of Revelation doesn’t bode well for a sexually charged being like Alice, who finds herself flirting with the idea of masturbating despite her teacher, Father Murphy (Timothy Simons), warning the class one day that such an act is “against God’s plan” because it doesn’t create children. And is therefore a product of pure self-indulgence–and as Catholicism has long highlighted, all pleasure is sinful (which is exactly why everyone ends up pursuing it in more debauched ways undercover).
But how could Alice resist when she finds herself in one of AOL’s online chat rooms simply trying to guess the movie titles of some word scrambles when a user named HairyChest1956 messages her a salacious photo of him and his “wife.” It’s not like it was Alice’s fault, right? That a little bit of porno lite came her way? Alas, just as she’s got her hand down her school uniform skirt (for that Britney Spears in the “…Baby One More Time” video effect), her mother calls her for dinner. Oh, what’s a Catholic schoolgirl to do in order to get some sexual gratification without being shamed or interrupted?
What’s worse is that, despite hiding the true nature of her feelings, she’s branded as a slut anyway after a rumor circulates that she tossed Wade’s (Parker Wierling) salad, of all things, in the sauna at her best friend Laura’s (Francesca Reale) house. This rumor is relayed to her by Beth (Teesha Renee), a popular girl whose good graces Laura desperately wants to be in. When Beth tells them about a school-sanctioned retreat called Kirkos she went on that she feels they could benefit from, Laura jumps at the chance, hoping not only to impress Beth but to get closer to her new friend, Nina (Alisha Boe, another Netflix alum playing a very Jessica Davis in 13 Reasons Why role). Alice, meanwhile, is just hoping to clear her name by showcasing more intense piety, not to mention wanting to shake off Laura’s suspicions about her as a huge perv considering she made her rewind the scene where Jack bangs Rose in Titanic more than once.
At this little “retreat,” where “soul-searching” is meant to be the goal, Alice ends up doing just that in a more opposite way than her peers, who are still content to drink the Kool-Aid despite themselves being the biggest hypocrites of all. For while everyone else is busy judging her (compounded by her honesty when she does something like circle “turned on” as an emotion she’s been experiencing this year), they themselves are perfectly all right with defying the so-called wishes of God in their own various carnal ways, two major ones of which Alice happens to spy while doing her own penance for being such a “knave.”
Gradually questioning everything she’s been told, she starts to realize that the only reason anyone is going along with this eternal damnation mumbo jumbo is because they’re sinning in secret and repenting in public (like Kathryn Merteuil said, “Everybody does it, it’s just that nobody talks about it”). The crumbling of her faith in the staunch way that no human–with all of her inherent frailties–is capable of adhering to becomes confirmed when she steals away from the “Jesus camp” one night and walks into a lesbian bar called Gina’s. It’s there that the eponymous owner (Susan Blackwell) tells her that she was Catholic too, once. So afraid of going to hell, she thought every little sin she committed would get her there, like saying she would give up sugar for Lent and then clandestinely eating gum drops under her grandma’s staircase. It’s then that it hits Alice: no one knows what they’re doing, least of all the “devout” teachers and students who would deign to judge her. Well, “let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Upon leaving the retreat, Alice does feel lighter (even if not in the way intended by the organizers), no longer burdened with the fire and brimstone hooey she’s been peddled for so long. And she knows just the way to not only reveal this newfound levity to Father Murphy, but also to herself. In the latter case, let’s just say that Titanic always deserves a thorough re-watching.
