Saved!
Picture: B-
Sound: B- Extras: B Film: B
When I first became aware of Brian Dannelly’s comedy Saved!
(2004), not knowing much about it, I expected that it would most likely be
another shallow bashing of kids and religion that proved how distant Hollywood
was from teenage life. Not that it is a
“Godless town” but that the commercial secular world is not really concerned
with religion in general. Instead, it
has turned out to be a big independently-produced surprise and joins The
Girl Next Door (the uncut version of which is reviewed elsewhere on this
site) as another rare exception in the otherwise bankrupt cycle of teen
comedies we have had to endure in recent years.
Two longtime best girlfriends (Jenna Malone of Donnie
Darko and Mandy Moore, showing some real acting chops here) are about to
become enemies as young men, jealousy and reputation will test the limits of
their relationship and cause the sacrilege to fly. Mary (Malone) finds out her boyfriend (Martin Donovan) is gay,
while Hilary Faye (Moore) is anxious to be the only queen of American Eagle
Christian High School. Macaulay Culkin
is good in his only teen film as a wheel chair bound student, Heather Matarazzo
takes a different turn here versus what she has done in the past, the underused
and underrated Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous) is a new love interest for
Mary and Mary-Louise Parker is a welcome addition as one of the many parents.
The film finds the situations as absurd as misguided
faith. By dealing with jealousy, teen
angst and sexuality so honestly, it counters the denial the Religious Right
continues to perpetrate on the country’s youth without outright bashing
Christianity. The best thing it does is
in showing any faith’s limits and certainly gets at the most important truth
about dogmatic Christianity I can think of.
It is that when your faith fails you or life gets tough and you
subscribe to said religion, you realize whether those around you are really
supportive and for real, or if one is being lied to and suckered. This is done as one of the best jokes with
the suck-up villain/teen Kent in Real Genius (1985), but this film
reinforces it at a time when an extreme version of Christianity is sweeping the
nation. The cast has great chemistry
and the script is very well though out.
Dannelly co-wrote the film with Michael Urban and it is a real winner.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is not bad, but
not as vivid as it could be, but cinematographer Bobby Budowski is good at
getting some funny shots. The film has
a sense of humor without overdoing it.
Special mention goes to costume and production designers, who make this
all the more believable. The Dolby
Digital 5.1 mix is good, with a good score by Christophe Beck, but is somewhat
dialogue-based and has limits. I
believe a DTS mix would have shown there is more here to the sound that the
Dolby suggests, nevertheless. Extras
include two great commentary tracks, one with Malone and Moore that is
charming, and another with Dannelly, Urban and co-producer Sandy Stern. There is also a trailer for this and a few
other MGM titles, two good featurettes, some amusing deleted scenes and a fun
bloopers reel. That is a really good
set of extras for an independent production that deserves a huge audience.
R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe was a co-producer on the
film as well, which is great because it continues the spirit that the band
itself has had since its glorious arrival in the 1980s. So many stars in music and TV have tried to
break into feature film projects, but the majority have failed or produced some
truly awful films. After years of his
band producing some of the most important songs, albums and Music Videos in the
business, he may have made that rare transition few have succeeded at. Let’s hope this is the beginning of a long
line of great films.
- Nicholas Sheffo
