Catholic school has never been this awkward | Lemonade Blessing (2026)

I am Jason Kleeberg, this is Force Five, and today I’m going to give you 5 reasons you might like Chris Merola’s 2026 directorial debut Lemonade Blessing, and make sure to stick around because at the end I’ll give you two top 5 lists this movie could easily make. If you’re interested, check the description because you’ll find where it’s playing at the moment and other information about the movie.

If you like movies that wrestle with religion, you’re going to find a lot to love here. Saying the movie puts Catholic school on blast might be oversimplifying it a bit, but only a little bit. The film is about John, a teenager whose recently divorced, extremely Catholic mother sends him to a private Catholic high school. His life becomes a lot more complicated once he meets Lilith, an atheist classmate who takes an interest in John and begins testing exactly how far he’s willing to push his faith, morality and comfort zone in the name of their relationship. This school is a very typical Catholic school, teaching about morality and chastity, while the kids that go there are horny, confused and watching cake fart porn. John is right in the middle of that contradiction, where he believes in God but his relationship with Lilith forces him to separate his beliefs from the fear, guilt, shame and expectations that have been built around them. If you like movies like Yes, God, Heaven Help Us or Lady Bird, you’re going to love Lemonade Blessing.

If you like coming-of-age movies, this is a great one. There are a million movies about being a teenage, but I think the best ones are those that remember that when you’re 15, relatively insignificant things feel like the most important events that have ever happened to anyone. Getting a girlfriend isn’t just getting a girlfriend, it’s a life changing event, and being embarrassed at school isn’t just embarrassing, your life might as well be over. Maybe the most important part of that ethos is that questioning something your mother has taught you your whole life can feel like the entire foundation of reality is collapsing underneath you, and Lemonade Blessing understands that. Writer/director Chris Merola has said that the movie is pretty autobiographical - both he and John are children of divorce who escaped into video games and struggled with people-pleasing and trying to become whatever version of themselves the person standing in front of them wanted.

Sounds…familiar here too…damn.

Anyway, this one is right in the same lane as Eighth Grade, Didi and certainly has some Rushmore DNA in it, so if you like those kinds of films, check this out.

If you like watching painfully awkward relationships on screen, this one is certainly painful.There are a lot of movies where teens feel more like 35-year old screenwriters trapped inside 16 year old bodies and as much as I love Kevin Williamson scripts where kids flirt perfectly, pontificate about their existence and have beautifully constructed conversations about relationships and sexuality, it never feels like real life. This movie does. The relationship between John and Lilith is a mess. They mislead each other, push each other too far, say strange things and confuse attraction with intimacy. It’s sweet, funny, uncomfortable, unhealthy and embarrassing, sometimes all in the same scene. I think that the performances by Jake Ryan and Skye Alyssa Friedman are incredible, they have a really strong chemistry between them and the director has talked about how he used rehearsal and improvisation to give their scenes some looseness and it totally works. Also Jake Ryan totally gives me young Jason Schwartzman vibes and I love that dude.

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One of the smartest things about this movie is that John slowly discovers something that most of us eventually learn - adults have no idea what they’re doing either. I think the adult relationships in this movie are pretty realistic. His mother Mary, played by Jeanine Serralles, is devoutly religious, extremely protective and is so determined to make sure John becomes the person she thinks he should be that she struggles to see the person he actually is. His dad, Pete, is way less religious and lives and entirely different kind of life and John changes based on what house he’s staying in at the moment, like he’s moving between two different worlds. However, it doesn’t ever portray the parents as monsters. Sure, they’re flawed and they hurt each other, but there’s still love there. It reminds me a bit of movies like Kramer vs Kramer or Squid and the Whale, where growing up also means your parents aren’t perfect authority figures.

Last but certainly not least…

If you like discovering filmmakers before everyone else does, remember the name Chris Merola. This is his first feature but it certainly won’t be his last. This isn’t shot like a typical dialogue-driven indie coming of age comedy, Merola and his cinematographer Harrison Kraft, editors Edward Fan and Abhineet Kumar and composer Daniel Futcher find ways to put us inside of John’s head when things feel gigantic with interesting framing, editing and music. There’s a panic attack sequence that really stands out - Merola says that he extensively storyboarded it and filmed it across 6 separate shooting days in a movie that only had a 20 day shoot and you can see a lot of his talent right in that one set piece. I love finding those filmmakers that I know are going to blow up some day before they do and I’ll be one of the people saying, “I’ve been a fan since Lemonade Blessing.” Will you be one of those too? 

Let’s talk top 5 lists - first up, obvious one but Top 5 Catholic School movies. It would be on a list right next to some films I already mentioned - Lady Bird, Heaven Help Us, Yes, God, Yes, also The Trouble with Angels and Doubt to a much different degree. And I’d definitely seat this on Top 5 movies that make you glad you’re not a teenager anymore along side Mean Girls, Thirteen, Superbad, Welcome to the Dollhouse and Eighth Grade. 

If you’ve seen Lemonade Blessing, what did you think of it? Was the CGI as distracting to you as it was to me? Let me know in the comments below and if you have a movie you want me to do a 5 reasons video for, I’d love to hear about that too. If you didn’t subscribe earlier, you can do it right here by clicking the logo and up there is another video YouTube think you’ll like. Finally, down below you’ll find links to buy a shirt, check out my Letterboxd and my other socials. 

Life is short. Spend it with the people, and the movies, that you love.