Short Review: Yes, God, Yes (2019)
★★★★½
Outrageously funny and surprisingly insightful, this coming-of-age dramedy is a scathing satire of religion, in particular Christianity of the Catholic flavor and its puritanical norms surrounding sex, but without ever being hateful, preachy, or dishonest. Religion is not denigrated pointlessly. Nor are its many positive features, such as social belonging and spiritual fulfillment, totally ignored. Rather, “Yes, God, Yes” specifically explores the ways in which organized religion and the pursuit of that belonging and fulfillment often becomes perversely entwined with other social practices and institutions, such as patriarchy, compulsory schooling, adolescent cliques, social capital hierarchies, ageism, technology, and the internet.
“Yes, God, Yes” powerfully and often hilariously illustrates the psychologically destructive effects of using the threat of eternal suffering to control people, especially young women. And it also presents a nuanced view of sex-positive feminism in which the protagonist is shamed for a baseless rumor far more than the man said to be involved, but whom ironically comes to a much deeper understanding of herself and her sexuality on a retreat for abstinence.
