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Category:    Home > Reviews > Comedy > Saved!

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


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