What the movie doesn’t do well at all is to present a coherent, rational alternative to Christian fundamentalism.
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One day, history may look upon 2004 as a pivotal moment in American history. In February, Mel Gibson released "The Passion of the Christ", a movie that functioned as a rallying point for angry Christian fundamentalists. Political liberals championed Michael Moore´s "Fahrenheit 911", a badly-reasoned polemic about why George W. Bush is a dangerous president. A little movie called "Saved!" tried to find some middle ground by attacking extremism while preaching its own brand of extremism (blind irrational tolerance). The movies reflect certain trends and pent-up frustrations that have been gathering under the surface of social geniality. 2004 simply happened to be the year of emotional eruptions. All this in a presidential election year during which the definition of marriage and the Constitutionality of referring to the Judeo-Christian God in the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag have been questioned.
In "Saved!", Mary (Jena Malone) has sex with her homosexual boyfriend in the hopes of setting him on the straight, Christian path. However, her boyfriend remains homosexual and is sent to a de-programming camp by his parents, and Mary becomes pregnant. She hides her pregnancy from Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore), her high school´s paragon of Christian zealotry and her former clique leader in the Christian Jewels (a music band). As Mary questions her faith, she spends more and more time with Cassandra (Eva Amurri), a Jewish, chain-smoking rebel, and Roland (Macauley Culkin), Hilary Faye´s adopted brother. Mary and Hilary Faye both vie for Patrick´s attentions. Patrick (Patrick Fugit) is the pastor-principal´s son, so nabbing him would be a personal and a social triumph for Hilary Faye.
"Saved!" directs several good barbs at Christian fundamentalists. For example, when Roland questions whether or not Jesus should be painted white or brown, Hilary Faye is presented as an ethnocentric freak. In another scene, Roland observes that Christian fundamentalists would be near a pregnancy clinic only to pipe-bomb it. There are also several good laughs generated by Cassandra´s outrageous denials of the kind of "Christian" hysteria on display at school. The movie does a good job of showing how Christian fundamentalists are really no better than the Islamic, Jewish, African tribal, etc. fundamentalists anywhere in the world; religious extremists are religious extremists, all deserving of being shunned.
What the movie doesn´t do well at all is to present a coherent, rational alternative to Christian fundamentalism. Cassandra is just wild and kooky. Her behavior is not something to be emulated. Mary decides to become a single mother by lying and without carefully planning on how to take care of her child. Patrick, the one decent character in the story, becomes shunted off to the side as an underdeveloped afterthought. While the girls who want to be Hilary Faye´s acolytes are all social climbers, the movie could´ve portrayed some of them as genuinely nice people.
Finally, the movie fails to condemn Christian fundamentalism with as much fervor as it does mocking it. After delivering a scathing dressing-down, the moviemakers decide to ease off on the fundamentalists without saying, "You make the world miserable for the rest of us." In the age of Bush and his incessant Bible-beating (and essentially willful mis-readings of Biblical literature), what we really need is a clear-headed examination of what is wrong with blind allegiances, not a movie that naively asks for tolerance in general.
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