Saved! - The movie

After it was mentioned in class, I watched the movie Saved!  Mary, the protagonist, sees herself as a "good Christian girl who goes to a good Christian high school where she has good Christian friends and [...] a perfect Christian boyfriend" (IMDb).  Hilary Faye is the most popular girl at the school, and the most outwardly religious.  Other important characters are Dean (Mary's boyfriend), Roland (Hilary Faye's wheelchair-bound brother), and Cassandra (the rebellious Jew).  The seemingly perfect Christian life starts to go awry when:
- Dean admits he might be gay
- Mary decides to have sex with him to "cure" him of this
- Her plan fails, she ends up pregnant, and Dean's parents send him to Mercy House which will supposedly rid him of this condition
- Hilary Faye, who turns out to be extremely selfish, ridicules anyone who she sees as less Christian than herself
- Cassandra tries to cause as much trouble as possible while humiliating Hilary Faye and poking fun at Christianity
- Roland falls for Cassandra and admits he is not a Christian

To cut to the chase, Mary ends up having the baby and falling for Patrick (the pastor's son), Dean finds a boyfriend, Hilary Faye gets what's coming to her and learns to accept everyone, Cassandra is less rebellious and she and Roland are a happy couple, and the movie ends with Mary's inner musings about religion.

For as cheesy and predictable as it was, I thought the movie had some interesting aspects.  To start with, it shows Mary's spiritual journey.  At first, she is a blind believer, a "good" Christian who honestly thinks that the right thing to do for Dean is to cure him of his homosexuality.  However, when she becomes pregnant (her name draws a parallel to the Virgin Mary, whom she references during the movie), Mary begins to question her faith.  The pregnant Mary stands in front of a cross at her church and yells, "Sh*t.... f*ck.... god d*mn," expecting God to smite her where she stands but instead receiving no divine reaction whatsoever.  During this difficult time, she thinks Jesus isn't listening, and starts to wonder if Dean's homosexuality is not a "condition."  By the end of the movie, Mary has come back to find God in her own way, saying when her baby is born that life is too beautiful not to have a creator.

I think the film essentially shows what Christian values should be, as opposed to what they evolve into under the influence of churches, organizations, and society in general.  Hilary Faye is an example of this.  She SEEMS like the perfect Christian: she participates in every activity, prays and talks about Jesus constantly, and chauffeurs her handicapped brother.  However, we discover little by little that Hilary Faye is completely self-absorbed and only helps her brother because she has to.  Our feelings of revulsion toward her are particularly strong in a scene where she tries to figure out what is wrong with Mary, flinging a Bible at her and screaming, "I am FILLED with God's love!"  It becomes clear to us that this is not what a true Christian should be.  We see more Christian values in Cassandra, who is Jewish, when she helps Mary with her pregnancy.  Ironically, the most Christian love and acceptance towards one's neighbor is shown in the final scene, when the school has been graffiti'ed, the statue of Jesus destroyed, and the Christian prom completely ruined.  The viewer is left with a clear message that faith and Christian love come from within, and are not dependent on a church or religious school.