Yes, God Yes. Quick Review.

This feature adaptation of director Karen Maine’s short film sees Natalia Dyer play a repressed early 2000s Catholic school girl who discovers her sexual awakening through an AOL chat and a trip to a retreat with other students. .This critic was not aware of the short film’s existence before starting this feature-length version. Given the limited locations relatively small scope and pacing of certain scenes, this fact is not hard to deduce. This is not a knock against the feature version. Dyer’s central performance is really solid (much as certain viewers will still see a certain amount of Nancy Wheeler.) The film offers amusing satire related to how sheltered the world of the central characters is. It showcases the satirical potential of that environment fairly effectively. It doesn’t outstay its welcome at a very brief 78 minutes. That said it doesn’t utilize those minutes as effectively as possible given that it still feels like a feature adaptation of source material that is better suited to a shorter form. There are the of a very strong indie comedy here. The fact the film doesn’t use its length to flesh out the narrative it’s a large part of the reason why the film is not able to build on these bones more effectively. If viewers or into this very specific brand of low key comedy the film might well be worth a look. Much as the final product is decent enough with that said it’s hard not to think the film did not live up to its potential.
6/10