saved

I caught the 2003 movie Saved! this weekend. There was a lot of controversy when it came out because it a comedy that depicts a Christian school in a less-than-flattering way. After watching it, though, it’s clear that the comedic critique in the movie is of hypocrisy, not of Christianity, and of people who pay lip-service to religious beliefs without investing themselves in the spirit of them. And the movie is just hilarious.
It’s the story of Mary, who’s on track to have a have a perfect senior year at her Christian school, what with her membership in a perky Christian pop group, her hot-popular clique of friends, and her handsome, devout Christian figure-skater boyfriend Dean. Until Dean comes out to her, of course. Then she hears what she thinks is a vision from Jesus telling her to save Dean, which she interprets as a command to change his homosexuality by sleeping with him. Silly girl. Of course she does, and of course, he doesn’t. But she gets pregnant as Dean is hauled off to a brainwashing camp for a cure. And suddenly Mary loses not just her boyfriend, but her friends, her pop-group and (temporarily) her faith as well, as she struggles through her senior year with the help of the school’s other outcasts: the lone Jewish girl and her boyfriend the paraplegic.