"Saved!" is a delightful satire of teenage born again Christians from first time writer/director Brian Dannelly. "Saved!" is about the students at Amercian Eagle Christian School and their fanatical devotion to Jesus. Hillary Faye (Mandy Moore) and Mary (Jena Malone) are two of Christian Jewels, the shining embodiment of Christ's love to the rest of the student body. All is going well until the summer before their senior year. Mary discovers that her boyfriend Dean (Chad Faust) is gay and then promptly has a vision from Jesus that it is up to her to save him. She thinks the only way to do this is to have sex and Jesus will for give her because she is doing his will. This is where things take a turn for the worse. Dean's parents find out about his homosexuality and send him to Mercy House for "degayification" right before school starts. Mary has to go on and deal with her inability to save him.
During the first day of school the audience is introduced to the man behind American Eagle, Pastor Skip. Pastor Skip is the principal of the school and Jesus’ right hand man. He is hip and cool and says things like "Let's get out Christ on" and "Are you down with G-O-D!?!” The same day the last three members of the ensemble are introduced. Roland (Macaulay Culkin), is Hillary Faye's wheelchair bound brother who is sarcastically not Christian. Hillary wheels him around like her own personal merit badge for Christ's love and Roland can't stand it. Roland meets the "bad girl" Cassandra (Eva Amurri) and after a little verbal sparing they become friends. Cassandra is the only "Jewish" in the school which leads to Hillary constant need to save her, even though they are the high school equivalent of mortal enemies. The final addition to the cast is Pastor Skip's son Patrick (Patrick Fugit). Patrick is the skateboarding, hard-rocking, Christian type. He wears shirts that show God's sign as metal horns. This almost makes him immediately unlikable but he plays it well.
Article comments
1 - visualsimplicity
I enjoyed this movie a lot too and agree with a lot of what you're saying. Also, despite what a lot of controversy-mongers say about this movie, in no way is it a harp on the faith of Christianity (although it does some what seem to be against the entity of an organized religion). Anyway, it's a great movie and Mandy Moore is wonderful as the villain.
2 - Scott Butki
Saw this last night and loved it. Very cool movie - think Heathers + christian school +more gay characters = Saved