06.13.04
Movie Review: Saved!

Much like how growing up in a restrictive environment makes it easy to rebel, picking a subject as broad as the Christian pop (sub)culture makes it easy to have at least some of your jokes hit the target.

Saved! turns out to be a fairly gentle send-up of a life at private Christian school. It’s mostly redeemed by its excellent young cast, including Jena Malone, Patrick Fugit and Heather Matarazzo. Mandy Moore is excellent as the scary Hillary (read: Tammy) Faye, and Macauley Culkin is great as her wheelchair-bound twin brother. (I guess he’s supposed to be all disillusioned with God or something, but he comes off as just being charmingly horny.)

Jena plays a high school senior who has sex with her boyfriend to keep him from becoming gay. It doesn’t work and he’s shipped off to de-gayifcation camp, leaving Jena pregnant, with only Macauley and Scary Jewish Goth Eva Amurri (interchangeable with Lizzy Caplan’s Scary Jewish Goth in Mean Girls) to befriend her.

Stuff happens. Lessons are learned. Everyone hugs. It’s a pleasant way to get your summer-teen-movie fix while waiting for Napoleon Dynamite to come to a theater near you. Damn you, limited release!

Full of Jesusy goodness! Jena Malone, Patrick Fugit, Macauley Culkin and Eva Amurri.
© 2004 United Artists.