DVD REVIEW: SAVED! (7 OUT OF 10)

Directed by Brian Dannelly and produced by everyone’s favorite bald post-famous rocker, Michael Stipe, Saved!, now out on DVD, chronicles the senior year of a girl named Mary (Jena Malone) whom is about to get seriously shaken from her life of faith and devotion to Jesus Christ. Upon finding out that her boyfriend is gay, Mary decides to try and “de-homo-fy” him by giving up her virginity. In the process the two do not use birth control and BOOM! The once devout Christian girl has got a bun in the oven, forcing her to question her faith and leave her old life and old friends behind. The rest of the film pits the well-adjusted, popular group of high school kids led by Hillary Faye (Mandy Moore) against the misfits and non-conformists. This makes it easy to see the similarities between Saved! and every other movie ever made about high school.

The best thing about Saved! is undoubtedly the fine performances delivered by its off-beat yet talented young actors. Mandy Moore plays a convincing psycho-bitch who fronts as a Jesus fanatic. While she usually plays fairly uncomplicated roles (i.e. How to Deal, Chasing Liberty), Moore shows off her ability to incorporate a little edge into a character. Macaulay Culkin looks pretty credible in this film as a crippled kid who has a good outlook on life despite his physical shortcomings. Rounding out the bunch are two lesser-known young actors Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous), and Eva Amurri (Susan Sarandon’s daughter). They play solid roles in the film as two Christian high school kids looking for more meaning in life than faith can give them. The main role in Saved! was given to actress Jena Malone of Donnie Darko fame. Malone delivers enough to make the film pretty good, but shows the faintest glimmer compared to the rest of the cast.

Watching Saved! is a decent way to spend an hour and a half. While it has a fairly formulaic high school movie plot, it also has a great cast and an interesting twist with the incorporation of hardcore Christians. The DVD extras are a total non-factor, including only the generic director and actor commentary and some well-deserved deleted scenes. I must warn those of you who rent this film purely for its Jesus bashing: you will be let down. While Saved! is in no way out to recruit fresh Christians, it isn’t out there to knock them down a notch either. This film is more simply about the ways in which people deal with a two thousand year-old religion in modern times. Saved! will leave anyone with an open mind, Jesus freak or Satanist, feeling pretty gosh darn content in the end, possibly to the point of holding hands.