Saved!

This is an uncommon little movie. Following a group of outcasts at a Christian high school we get a movie that doesn't deride Christianity or mock christ, but instead embraces the principles of the Bible and focuses it's criticism on the casual culture that has formed around religion. For example there is a scene where Pastor Skip (the head of the school) and Mary's mother are having dinner and Pastor Skip is relating a conversation he'd had earlier with a co-worker "so I tell him, you know I can't tell the difference between Christian music and Secular music anymore, and he says that's the point, grab their interest." The thing I find interesting about this line is that it's drawing out this point that Christianity, or the culture surrounding it, has become something that it's not supposed to be. So many people have feared being truly different than the world that they have remodeled Christianity after the very things the Bible councels them to avoid in lasciviousness and base selfishness. The effect on the other end of this is that the adherants to this culture lose sight of the real meaning of being a Christian, ostracizing and persecuting the sinnners and strangers instead of welcoming them with warm arms and helping hands. Another line that serves to pull out this cultural observation, the desperate attempts to have Christian versions of everything worldly, is when we are first introduced to Patrick, the skateboarding son of Pastor Skip. The teacher introduces him to the class as having just returned from a world tour with the Christian Skateboarders and Cassandra, the smoking Jewish girl at the back of the class, says "Christian Skateboarders? Is nothing sacred to you people?" Of course the best line in the movie comes from Mary after Hillary Fay and her friends attempt to exorcize Mary in a bizzar drive-by intervention. As Mary walks away from their lunacy Hillary Fay throws her Bible at mary's back. Mary turns around, picks the book up and says, with a commendable ammount of despiration, "This is not a weapon. You idiot." and walks away.
After a prief glance at the IMDB bbs it's apparent that alot of people are judging this movie for what they percive it as being. I find that funny soley on the grounds that that is the attitude that Saved! is rejecting. But at the same time Saved! is not promoting an anything-goes relativity. It allows itself to admit that Mary has done something wrong, she made a mistake both logically and morally, but in a truly Christian way it accepts her for who she is and seeks to help her out of her predicament rather than condemning her to her misery. It says that as long as we're willing to try and change, willing to love one another and learn from our actions, we're not beyond hope.
Total: 75