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Karen Maine is an Iowa native, a Dowling Catholic High School graduate and, more recently, the writer and director of “Yes, God, Yes,” a movie that recently trended on the Netflix Top 5 nationwide.

Maine both wrote and directed the film, which tells the story of Alice, a Catholic school girl, played by “Stranger Things” actress Natalia Dyer, who feels alone as she discovers herself to be a sexual being in a religious environment where sexual desires and curiosity are considered “sinful” — but also where everyone seems to know what it means to “toss someone’s salad,” except her. Maine’s educational history at Dowling begs the question: Is the culture, gossip, behind-the-curtain sexual activity and social shunning of students portrayed in “Yes, God Yes” reflective of her personal experience at Dowling?

Although the school is never mentioned by name, Dowling graduate Cole Coffin said he first heard about “Yes, God, Yes” from another Dowling graduate who messaged him in a group chat that, “this movie is literally about Dowling.”

Coffin’s said, “Parts of it are true, but yeah, it’s Hollywood, so obviously they exaggerate it a little bit. It’s crazy to me that, in someone else’s eyes, they completely felt like that. It does actually open up your eyes to see the different perspectives that everyone else has.”

Avery Merkley, who also attended Dowling, noticed some similarities, too, such as, “the uniforms, the necklaces and the way that the school looked.” But she agreed that much was exaggerated in the film. She pointed out that in the film, nuns were pictured teaching classes. At Dowling, Merkley said, “students have normal teachers.”

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A significant portion of the movie takes place at a private spiritual retreat known in the movie as Kirkos. In real life, Dowling students know the retreat as Kairos, and Coffin said that some of the scenes in the movie were “spot on,” like when the priest reads letters from retreat-goers’ parents.

Dowling graduate and former Kairos attender Anthony Cappola called the experience “really emotional” and mentioned several other similarities between Kairos and Kirkos, such as retreaters not being allowed use cellphones and having leaders who were all upperclassmen.

Additionally, Cappola said, viewers might not have picked up on the fact that, in the movie, retreaters never know what time it is while they’re at Kirkos. At Kairos, he said, “we never saw a clock … no one had their phones (and) we were woken up and told when to go to bed.” During one particularly propminant scene in “Yes, God, Yes,” Alice accidentally witnesses a priest watching porn on his office computer. “I never encountered anything like that,” said Quincy Strawhecker, a former Kairos attender and Dowling graduate. ‘They turned it into something sexual … but, it’s so not like that at all.”

Sexuality is a central theme of the film, but Strawhecker said, “from what I remember, or even heard of, there’s no sexual aspect.” In fact, she said, “the retreat does a lot of good. It shaped the rest of my high school experience, and it’s how my brother found his whole friend group.”

According to Strawhecker, “Yes, God, Yes” paints Dowling in a bad light. As for why “Yes, God, Yes” made the Netflix Top 5, Coffin said “people our age are intrigued about the religion, especially in ways that go against it.”

Merkley said she imagines many in the Dowling community are not fans of the film. Strawhecker said her brother, who still attends Dowling and has not yet attended Kairos, was told not to watch “Yes, God, Yes” and not to let the movie ruin the experience. “The movie does kind of hate on Dowling,” Coffin said. But, he added that it was impressive to see Karen Maine make a Netflix Top 5 movie because of what she did at Dowling and who she became while she was there.

“I think it’s awesome,” Coffin said. “Whatever school anyone goes to, if someone does something well, you’re going to feel great for that person.”