A Review by Phil Calabro
2004, United Artists, Dir. Brian Danelly - Starring Jena Malone, Mandy Moore, Patrick Fugit, Maculay Culkin, Heather Matarazzo, Eva Amurri, Chad Faust, Elizabeth Thai, Martin Donovan, Mary-Louise Parker
Religion has proved to an obvious controversial subject in movies, which examples spanning from Priest to Last Temptation of Christ to Passion of the Christ - all making their mark as being respectable films despite the buzz that they created. And with a topic that buzzes quite a bit, Saved turns out to be a piece of smug independent tripe, that uses alluring mainstream cliches to attract young audiences. It comes across as a generally unfunny and unoriginal drama-com, with few enjoyable characters and sappy writing.
At a little fundamentalist Christian school, a young naive girl named Mary (Malone) has a great boyfriend Dean (Faust), and is good friends with the most popular girl in the class Hilary Faye(Moore). But when Mary finds out that Dean is gay, she decides to have sex with him to cleanse him from his homosexuality. But Dean is sent to a Christian care home, and Mary finds out she's pregnant. So Hilary Faye and her crew try to help clear Mary's soul through extreme Christianity - as Mary's life goes downward.
Mandy Moore is not interesting, despite the general consensus of reviewers. She's methodically mean, and it's nothing new that the moviegoer has seen. She's a cold-hearted bitch, and there is nothing that strikes me as special in her role. Jena Malone is so drab at Mary, that I couldn't feel one ounce of real emotion soaking through her character. She appeared statuary the entire runtime, showing similar expressions through each scene. The only interesting characters are by Culkin and Amurri, who have found love despite stepping away from Christianity.
First time director Dannelly tries so desperately to make his content shocking, that it ends up backfiring and turning into the basic material that I've seen in satirical comedies of the sort. When jokes are made about other religions, they come across more as bitter than funny - leaving you wondering whether the humor is meant more to make you think or laugh. The ending disappoints, the jokes aren't funny anyway, and the film falls into shambles as the movie furthers towards the end.
Saved can't stand on its own two feet. It feels rushed, and takes serious subjects with a grain of salt so to not let the audience even care about the situations some characters are in. It's a Christian-themed version of 'Mean Girls', that is hardly sharp, hardly funny, and hardly interested. It's amateurish in its own way, and can't get past it despite its weak attempts to establish it as maintsream. It's no 'Ten Commandments', senator.
1.5/4 stars
