It is the fall of 2000. Alice is a sexually inexperienced but curious junior at a strict Midwestern, co-ed Catholic high school where Morality class is led by Father Murphy. He teaches that any sexual activity outside procreation within a heterosexual marriage is a sin, with eternal damnation as punishment. The weight of these teachings clashes with Alice’s growing sense of desire, a tension that is only amplified by the influence of her close friend, Laura, who also feels the pressure to fit in and behave.
The following Monday, the school hallways buzz with a rumor that Alice “tossed the salad” of a classmate, Wade, at Laura’s party over the weekend. Alice denies this, admitting she doesn’t even know what the phrase means. The rumor reaches Mrs. Veda, who forbids Alice from serving at Mass. Later that day, during reconciliation, Alice confesses venial sins to Father Murphy and receives a light penance of twenty prayers, which she promptly fulfills in the school chapel, the priest’s and Mrs. Veda’s admonitions echoing in her mind.
Alice and Laura decide to attend the school’s upcoming “Kirkos” spiritual retreat. On the campgrounds, Laura is excited to discover that Nina is a retreat leader, while Alice is drawn to Chris, a tall, friendly senior who also leads a group. The two quickly begin to bond, and the retreat landscape becomes a space where curiosity and constraint tug at the surface. That first night, while secretly using a contraband cell phone, Alice discovers a personal capacity for self-pleasure via the phone’s vibrating feature, a moment she stops after glancing at the crucifix hanging in her room.
On the second day, Alice fakes an injury to get closer to Chris. Nina confiscates her phone, and Father Murphy assigns her to cleaning duties around the retreat house. While alone, she logs onto an AOL chat room from the office computer to ask what “tossing salad” means; before she can learn more, the approach of footsteps forces her to shut the computer and slip away. She later runs into Nina, who lightheartedly guilts Alice about the rumor and the supposed encounter.
The retreat’s tension escalates when Father Murphy announces a discovery of an explicit chat on his computer, for which no one claims responsibility. Alice confronts Wade, pressing him to admit his role, but he storms off without apologizing. Back in the woods, Alice witnesses Nina kissing, then performing oral sex on, another senior leader. She tells Laura, who refuses to believe her and blasts Alice as a “pervy psycho.” > “pervy psycho”
Outside the retreat grounds, Alice finds Chris again and shares a kiss with him, but he becomes overwhelmed and runs away. That night, she leaves the camp and stumbles upon a lesbian bar, where Gina welcomes her and offers understanding. Gina speaks frankly about the distortions that fear of damnation can inflict on growing up and suggests looking into colleges on both the West and East Coasts to broaden her horizons. Gina
On the retreat’s final day, Alice befriends a socially awkward classmate, and Wade faces accountability for the earlier incident, while Laura makes peace with Alice. During a whole-group sharing session, Alice reminds everyone that they are “hiding stuff” and urges them to treat one another with honesty and respect, echoing a broader mandate she believes Jesus would want.
Back at school, Alice tells Chris that they can simply be friends. She returns to reconciliation with Father Murphy and reveals that during the retreat she saw a video of people having sex—about which both sides knew but which they hadn’t discussed. Father Murphy responds with a heavier penance of one hundred prayers, but instead of staying in the chapel, Alice goes home to rewatch Titanic’s sex scene and, in a private moment, embraces masturbation as a way to process what she has learned and felt.
