DIRECTOR: Brian DannellyWRITER: Brian Dannelly, Michael Urban
STARRING: Jena Malone, Mandy Moore, Macaulay Culkin, Patrick Fugit, Heather Matarazzo, Eva Amurri, Chad Faust, Elizabeth Thai, Martin Donovan, Mary-Louise Parker
If any of you know anything about me personally, you should be aware of the fact that I'm an atheist. As far as I'm concerned, belief in God, Jesus, Allah, or what-have-you is nothing more than an overblown and out-of-control myth in the same vein as the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy. There are many things that I find unassailably contradictory about religion, especially Christianity, but nothing more so than their intolerance for difference. Homosexuality, teen pregnancy, cripples, and those of different belief structures - these are things that Christians don't understand, and these are things Christians choose to "fix" or persecute so they don't have to deal with them. This is the central idea behind Saved!.
Mary (Malone) is a Christian high school student who is living her life for the Lord. She has a great group of God-loving friends, led by the overachieving Hilary Faye (Moore), and a fantastic boyfriend, Dean (Faust). Her life is turned upside down when she discovers that Dean is *gasp* gay and she tries to "cure" him, becoming pregnant. Mary progressively falls out of favor with Hilary Faye, and she is taken under the broken wing of Cassandra (Amurri), the school's vagrant Jew, and Hilary Faye's crippled brother Roland (Culkin). She's also caught the eye of Patrick (Fugit), the school pastor's son - the same pastor who it just so happens is sticking it to her mother, Lillian (Parker).
I could spend a few paragraphs talking about the acting and all of the other obligatory trappings of movie reviews, but that's not the reason this movie was made. It wasn't filmed so a bunch of huffy opinionated assholes could argue why it should be on everyone's Top 10 list, or why it sucked so bad that "Mystery Science Theater 3000" should be brought back so they could do an episode based around it. It was made to showcase the lesson the filmmakers' want to teach to the world. Good for them for showing something that most filmmaker's lack: balls.
I am one who finds it hard to deal with the fallacies of Christianity well. The whole movie serves as a showcase for the cruelty of Hilary Faye, the revered Saint of the local youth Christian community. Her actions not only made me sick because they were malicious, but because I have seen them done in the real world by supposed children of God. I know that every group of people tied to a belief structure, even atheists, have their share of wackoloons bound to the cause. But Hilary Faye personifies the very worst of them: the self-righteous.
Of course, she receives her comeuppance in the end, and the beleaguered group of Mary, Cass, and Roland get their revenge. But the important part isn't that a resolution is reached, it's that a moral comes from all of this: Christians choose to oppress or repress people or things they don't understand or comprehend instead of following the example of their figurehead and accept all humans despite their faults, love them with no discrimination, and forgive them for all of their shortcomings. Christians spend too much time preoccupied with trying to get everyone to act the same way and believe the same way that they forget that the point isn't to ruin free will and individuality, but to develop a love for each other like Jesus did for everyone that had come before him, came during his life, and lived after his death.
Saved! tries to relate this point, and I think it does this well. But I'm afraid that if people don't already understand this concept, a movie isn't going to teach it to them. Unless Mel Gibson makes it. And that's only if it involves someone getting their ass kicked non-stop for two hours to prove it.
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