#1 Cheap Saved! Reviews
Special Price Today Go To Store!! (Limited Time Offer)
I found two things interesting about Saved!: one is the movie itself, which is a delightful teen comedy and coming-of-age film, where a group of young people at a private Christian high school are confronted with the difficult and complex world that they will have to navigate as adults. This includes issues of sexuality, responsibility, and morality, as well as the difficulty that always goes along with trying to live the ideals of one's faith in the real world. And here the movie's "villain", Hillary Faye, is just as interesting as the "hero", Mary. Both have a strong faith in Christ, and both must confront the challenges that their faith is supposed to help them confront. Both learn, in the end, that faith requires sacrifice and tolerance if it is to really do you any good.
This same issue is faced by the adults in the movie, and here is where I really enjoyed the film. Mary's mother Lillian and her principal Pastor Skip are also deeply religious, and each is lonely: she is a widow who wants, understandably, a man's love and, yes, sex, and he is in an unhappy marriage that really ought to be ended. But Pastor Skip in particular is trapped in an Augustinian legalistic faith that allows no compassion and no compromise, and so he projects his unhappiness onto the young people he is supposed to minister. Hillary Faye absorbs this like a sponge, finding herself trapped in the danger of power and harsh judgment that many Christians fall into, again favoring Augustine's dark view of the world over the loving one of Jesus and the gospels, even as both Pastor Skip and Hillary Faye claim to speak for Christ.
It's a familiar theme in American Christian fundamentalism, to use Christ and Christianity not to love your neighbor but to condemn and judge and hurt those who are different, who are already in pain; the scene at the end, when Pastor Skip is pacing back and forth, caught between his desire to bring flowers to a new mother and welcome a new child into the world and his fear which tells him to condemn them both, to cast that first stone, speaks wonders about the conflict so many Christians struggle with today. And yes, these sorts of Christians exist; I've met them and felt their fear.
The second interesting thing about the film is the reaction it has engendered among Christians themselves. Some see the film, correctly in my opinion, as a helpful warning to their own faith, that the example of Hillary Faye and Pastor Skip is one that every person of faith should heed and avoid. Others, however, have responded with fear, and with anger, claiming that the film is an attack on Christianity and that it is a rejection of faith. Yet the Christians in this film are everywhere, and they are good. They are Mary, whose mistake with her gay boyfriend Dean is founded in love (and teen ignorance). They are Dean, who discovers Christ's love even as his own parents send him away because their faith is weak. They are Patrick, who accepts Mary despite her foolishness, and they are Roland, who despite his claim that he isn't a Christian acts very much like the best of Christian kindness and charity, and they are even Cassandra, who like Jesus himself is a Jew and a rebel. Because they all, like real Christians and real Jews (and real Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists... the list goes on), know that Christianity isn't about judging people but about loving them, about forgiving and practicing kindness every day, about reaching out to those who are lost, who suffer, and who are afraid.
People who most need it, like Hillary Faye and Pastor Skip. And that is the real beauty of this film, because they do.
Saved! Overview
Good girl Mary (Jena Malone) and her best friend Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore) are at the top of the food chain at American Eagle Christian High School. But all that is about to change in this "subversively funny" (USA Today) teen comedy about hype, hypocrisy and high school. Also starring Macaulay Culkin and Patrick Fugit, Saved! is "a boldly hilarious satire" (Rolling Stone)!
Funny teen movie with good messages. - R. Phelps - Washington, DC United States
This really speaks to my 13-year-old son, in this time of having lots of questions about religion, relationships, navigating teenage years, and friendship. The beginning has a scene that is a little too sexually explicit for our taste, but we can overlook that and get on with the movie. The messages are right on - people are complex and not always what they seem to be at first; there is good in everyone; religion can be positive and it can be twisted and used by people sometimes; true friends stick together and watch out for one another; kids have a lot of sense (more than adults give them credit for sometimes); trust your gut but use common sense too.
No comments:
Post a Comment