Saved

~Poking fun at a religious extreme~

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By Todd Karella
June 4, 2004

If you've ever had an encounter with a born-again Christian that throws the word

"God" or "Jesus" into every other sentence, then you're going to enjoy the new religious satire Saved.
While some are quick to condemn the film as another attack on religion, others will see the humor as the subject matter deals with a Christian school that is the extreme and not the norm.
Focusing around a group of three girls from a Christian school, their lives are perfect as they center their lives around Jesus Christ. They are the coolest girls in school

Hilary Faye-Mandy Moore

and have their own religious singing group called the Christian Jewels, with Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore) as the lead singer.
Thankfully, the film does not turn into a Mandy Moore propaganda movie where we get to hear her sing every few minutes. She does part of a song during a particularly zealot school assembly, where we get to meet Pastor Skip (Martin Donovan) who is more a cheerleader for God using cool and hip language so he can relate better with the students.
Hilary Faye is the leader of the girls and let's everyone know how they can be better servants to Jesus, or at least how she thinks they could be.

Pastor Skip-Martin Donovan

The problems start when Hilary Faye's best friend and fellow Christian Jewel Mary (Jena Malone) finds out that her boyfriend Dean (Chad Faust) is gay. After having a vision where she thinks Jesus tells her to save Dean, she frantically tries to convert him back onto the Lord's team. In a last desperate attempt, she decides that sleeping with him would be the ultimate cure.
When the girls drive up the next day to pick Dean up for school they find out that he has been sent to Mercy house, a place for young Christians so he can have the

Patrick-Patrick Fugit & Mary go for a ride.

gay removed.
Upset, Mary turns to Hilary Faye and explains to her where Dean has gone. Like any good friend, Hilary Faye organizes a school-wide prayer service to pray for the pervert so that he

will be brought back to Jesus' flock.
Expecting to have her virginity restored by God for making such a sacrifice to save her boyfriend's soul, Mary is horrified to find out that her first-time encounter has resulted in her pregnancy.
Not knowing what to do, she decides to hide it. The one person in the school who discovers her secret is the antithesis of what she and her friends have believed all of their lives, the only Jew in an all-Christian school.

Having been thrown out of every school she's ever been in, Cassandra (Eva Amurri) finds herself friends with Hilary Faye's wheelchair bound brother Roland (Macaulay Culkin) and her ex-best friend Mary. Together the three help hide Mary's pregnancy and continue to push the

Mary-Jena Malone

A lovely gathering at a planned parenthood clinic.

Who vandalized the school?

Christian Halloween

The school outcasts

envelope at the school.
   While Dean is away being converted, Mary finds herself attracted to the new boy at school, which also happens to be Pastor Skip's son Patrick (Patrick Fugit). At a Christian school, a guy who skateboards for God, goes on missionary retreats with his mother and drives a scooter is considered cool and rebellious.
   This adds to the trouble between Mary and Hilary Faye as they both set their eyes upon him, and leads to someone vandalizing the school. Of course, the three misfits are the ones blamed as spray paint is found in their lockers along with Mary's sonogram.
   Since this is a comedy, everything works out in the end and culminates at the prom with Dean arriving with a van full of his gay friends and his new life partner, a confrontation between the two ex-friends and Hilary Faye's nervous breakdown.
   Even Mary's mother and Pastor Skip seem to learn a little something as they battle with accepting everything that has happened and the fact that people just aren't perfect.
   It's too bad that Saved had a limited release in theatres as it's such a good movie. The beginning is much funnier as some of the serious topics weigh it down towards the middle, but it does a good job of wrapping up and ending on a high note.