Are you there God? It's me, Sarah ... Hello? Hello?

Sarah is waiting — waiting for God to talk to her, waiting for her priest to grant her absolution and waiting for a boy to return.

We, too, are waiting — waiting for something, anything that raises our pulse, to happen to Sarah or anyone else in "Echoes of Innocence," an interminable film, billed by its moralistic filmmakers as a "teen romance/thriller/drama" — "without the sex."

Sarah (a stiff Sara Simmonds) is called "The Virg" by her high-school classmates because she's been obsessed with virgin-saint Joan of Arc since childhood, and because Sarah's saving herself. No, not for God, but for Christopher, her junior-high school crush who abruptly left town five years ago for no apparent reason.

Movie review

Showtimes and trailer

"Echoes of Innocence," with Sara Simmonds, Scottie Wilkison, Rolanda Brigham, Natali Jones, Jake McDorman. Written and directed by Nathan Todd Sims. 117 minutes. Rated PG-13 for sexual content, violence and thematic issues. Bellevue Galleria, Bella Bottega, East Valley.

Sarah walks numbly through life like a zombie, supposedly struggling with abstinence, making sacrifices and counting on delayed gratification.

Contrary to any high-school reality we remember, the pasty-faced Goth girl is asked out thrice in one day.

To one suitor she deadpans, "I don't smoke, drink or date, and I can recite the Apostles' Creed."

While Sarah wonders how many more dates she'll have to turn down, we wonder how many more random scenes we'll have to endure. The film's flaccid attempts at building suspense fall flatter each time the forceful music — accompanied by the sound of chirping birds — crescendos, delivering nothing but more unanswered questions.

Why is her black trench-coat-wearing classmate seemingly possessed by an evil entity? Why does he want to bomb the school? And why does a black cow appear whenever Sarah calls to God?

As Sarah prays desperately in various settings, lighting candles and clutching crucifixes, we too are praying that the 117-minute film will end sometime soon.

Judy Chia Hui Hsu: 206-464-3315 or jhsu@seattletimes.com