Saved! (2004)

This movie has the perfect serious/ridiculous balance. It conveys serious social messages, such as the hypocrisies and contradictions inherent in religion. It's very funny and edgy. It's a brilliant, poignant satire with some over the top villains of the bigoted, fanatical Christian, zealot type, and, perhaps most importantly, it contains several extremely likable, three-dimensional protagonists. It's rare to find a satire that contains three-dimensional characters that possess depth and likeability. It's one of my favourite films ever. I have watched it many times and I don't get bored of it.

Mary Cummings (Jena Malone), is an American Eagle Christian High School senior at the top of the social order as part of the Christian Jewels with her friends, Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore) and Veronica (Elizabeth Thai). While hanging out at the swimming pool in Mary's backyard, her boyfriend, Dean Withers (Chad Faust), tells her he might be gay. Her surprised reaction causes Mary to bump her head and she sees what believes is a religious vision telling her to try and help save Dean. After a conversation with Hilary about spiritual rebirth, in a shooting range of all places, Mary comes to the conclusion that she will sacrifice her physical virginity to help Dean. Despite all this, Mary learns that Dean's parents find a stash of gay pornography in his room and send him to a spiritual retreat/psychological clinic to be deprogrammed or 'cured' of his homosexuality. To her further shock, Mary believes she might be pregnant.Her pregnancy makes her an outcast, so Mary befriends Jewish student Cassandra (Eva Amurri), Hilary's brother Dean(Macaulay Culkin) and the principal Pastor Skip's son Dean (Patrick Fugit) who form a new system of support for her. Everybody seems to hiding something in this movie, including Pastor Skip, who's separated but divorced and carrying on a relationship with Cassandra's single mom. Everything comes to a head by the time for prom, though.

Saved is a 2004 teen comedy starring Macaulay Culkin from Home Alone(who plays Mandy Moore's brother who is disabled in this movie),Jean Malone from Stepmom,and Mandy Moore from Tangled and tells the tale of this young woman played by Jean Malone who is expecting a baby(similar to that 2007 film Juno). She has a group of friends one of them happens to be Hilary Faye(Moore)who is a Christian loving student who is so into her Christianity. But when Jean's characters friends find out that she is expecting,Moore's character turns against her and also steals a guys heart that Jean's character falls for. But will Jean get her friends back? Or will she make new friends who will like her for her.Now I haven't seen this movie in a very long time but from what I can recall I thought it wasn't that bad but the whole film is all about virginity and Christianity. I think this was Macaulay Culkin's final film before he retired from acting,and it was nice to see a fully grown up version of him star in this movie. Also starring in this movie is the actress who plays Lily in Princess Diaries as Mandy Moore's best friend(who Mandy herself starred in Princess Diaries too as Lana Thomas the arrogant cheerleader).Mandy also happens to do music for this film too including the song God Only Knows. Yeah the film was OK but if you are a Christian you might be offended as it always refers to the lord's name in vain and it was nice to see Moore with her natural blonde hair again. But is it me or does she be taken seriously as a brunette than as a blonde. 5/10

This is someone's terrible view of American Evangelicals. High school students who believe in God are all naive, ignorant airheads. They are conniving, judgmental and shallow. The main character doesn't even know how to use an electric toothbrush for crying out loud.What are non-Christians in this movie? They are cool because they smoke, have pre-marital sex and ridicule Christians by calling them freaks. One line by Macaulay Culkin actually has him saying that the only reason a Christian would be at a Planned Parenthood clinic is to plant a pipe bomb! A completely unrealistic, offensive movie and I'm not even an Evangelical. Anyone who finds this entertaining must be a complete hypocrite.