Calling Saved! cheap controversy would be
accurate, but I do not necessarily look at this in a bad
light. In all honesty, it would be hard for me to say
that director Brian Dannelly intended to make a
life-affirming picture. What he has crafted, however, is
a witty and amusing one, realistically poking fun of
organized religion, targeting Christianity, in a mostly
inoffensive way. Saved! makes for an insightful,
but entirely forgettable, sit, with some great
performances and writing on its side.
Jena Malone plays the main
character, Mary, who attends an obsessive Baptist
school. There, everything circulates around religion,
day in and day out, as students serve what they believe
to be the will of God. Hilary Faye (played by a maturing
Mandy Moore), in particular, is a bit of a Jesus freak.
Despite the compulsion of Christianity, everything at
the American Eagle School is in order and functioning
smoothly. Small-scale chaos erupts, though, when Mary’s
boyfriend, Dean (Chad Faust), is discovered to be gay by
all of the students. Mary tried to save him before
summer’s end, motivating him sexually in every way
possible, but such attempts failed. He is sent away to
be reformed by his parents, while she finds out that she
is pregnant after she engaged in intercourse with him,
sans protection (she believes Jesus told her to). Things
become worse when Hilary Faye refuses to be Mary’s
friend anymore because she blames Jesus for all of the
bad things that have happened to her. The only people
left to befriend are the only two seemingly rational
people in school, Roland (Macaulay Culkin), Hilary
Faye’s paralyzed brother, and Cassandra (Eva Amurri), a
Jewish outsider who has to attend American Eagle because
she was expelled from her previous school.
There are several flaws in
Saved! (I will explain the one that particularly
bothers me later), but Dannelly and his co-writer,
Michael Urban, have fashioned a rather insightful
satire, nevertheless. Unfathomable enjoyment can be
found in the fanatical qualities that some of the
characters bear. From the always egotistical Hilary Faye
to her pompous followers, who always believe they’re
behaving properly because their actions are biblically
correct in their eyes, laughs are abundant in even the
most serious of scenes. I definitely prefer the
light-hearted moments of Saved! over the deeper
ones, because Dannelly’s philosophy is too simplistic to
explore anything of tortuousness well.
For Mandy Moore and Jena
Malone, Saved! was a fantastic opportunity. Both
have a few awful movies on their resumes, but this one
definitely confirms that they’re both dignified
actresses. Moore is the highlight of the entire movie;
her character is not only the best written in it, but
also the best performed. After seeing Chasing Liberty,
I was a bit afraid of what her career might become, but
here, she finds the right groove and steers herself back
on track.
While essential to the plot,
the only truly problematic character is Dean, Mary’s
homosexual ex-boyfriend. One exchange of dialogue
between she and he is especially counterproductive to
the entire movie, and so is the entire ending which it
inspires. “You’re pregnant? On the first time?” he
inquires, and she responds with a weak “Yeah.” “Cool” he
says, bringing a sort of villainous approval about his
making her pregnant. This almost makes him seem like the
antagonist of the movie, when he should be gaining our
sympathy. Dannelly would like us to think that Dean’s
parents were the evil ones, in sending him away to try
to be “rescued” from his sexual preference, and that his
procreating with Mary helped her find herself and make
amends with God. I just can’t buy that this makes him a
deserving guy, though. Wouldn’t the whole situation have
been resolved if they were, in fact, “Good”
Christians? (Nod your head in approval, now). In my
mind, being a “Good” Christian does not entail
obsession, just faith and following the guidelines set
forward by the religion. I’m not biased in the favor of
such belief, either; I’m actually agnostic. I suppose
that could make my opinion both more and less qualified,
depending on the way you look at it.
I’m marginally recommending
Saved! simply because I think its positive features
outweigh its negative ones. Without the great one-liners
and terrific performances, though, my rating of it would
probably drop by two buckets. Most of the time, it’s a
stupendous experience, and this is just enough for me to
reflect upon it with joy instead of anguish.
-Danny, Bucket Reviews (6.15.2004)