Saved!

Year: 2004

Grade: C

Country: USA

Director: Dannelly

Review

marginal farce of christian fundamentalists. its major problem is that it sort of doubles back on itself and ends up being a fairly christian-friendly film. in the beginning it has an “election” type tone and makes fun of fundamentalists like christopher guest might. in the middle, though, there is a tone shift and things start to get serious. that’s where it went wrong. things end up getting too syrupy sweet and the protagonist, who had formerly dropped jesus like a bad habit and gotten pregnant, asks “i mean, what would jesus really do?” macaulay culkin’s outcasted character softly reassures the bitchy fundamentalist antagonist of the film (mandy moore) by saying that jesus still loves her despite her transgressions. there are many other attempts at tenderness and resolution, but they all fall short of their mark. it really is too bad because the comedic portions of the film were pretty dead on. to get an example of the right way to do a satire like this you need look no further than another jena malone film – donnie darko – and what it did with patrick swayze’s character. i truly think that most mainstream “liberalized” christians could enjoy the picture because it makes fun of fundamentalists (with whom most christians disagree), while still offering a sense of jesus as a guiding light as evidenced by the “i mean, what would jesus really do?” line, along with the gay guy saying “i feel jesus in my heart” and that’s what matters, along with culkin reassuring his evil sister of jesus’ forgiveness, etc. jordan lindsey would love this movie.

Watched in theater