movie: Saved
starring: Mandy Moore, Macaulay Culkin
genre: Comedy
year: 2004
format: Hollywood Suites Channel
plot: After learning her boyfriend is gay, a religious teen decides to save him by sleeping with him, only to end up pregnant and alone.
The first few minutes of this film nearly had me turning the movie off. It basically hits you upside the head with a steel chair, with it's views. In the first ten minutes. After that, it mellows out and the comedy kicks in.
It's part high school mean girls, part after school special in it's approach. You have who you think is just the sidekick, following her gut instincts and ends up actually being the lead character. But the story is as much about the group of people on the border of her life as it is about her. Her mother's life parallels her's in the simple fact they are both crushing on the men in their lives, who happen to be the school minister and his son. The son is a bit more free thinking then his father through most of the movie.
The theme here was a slight bit muddled. It at it's core is tolerance. We as a society preach one thing, and many times do the opposite. This movie in a backarsed way, is pointing out that we need to be more understanding and less self obsessed.
I wanted to like someone in this film, anyone. Given the whole feel good love love love everyone happy ending, but...even that felt preachy to me. You're suppose to feel sorry for the rest of the characters, from the disabled brother, to his outcast girlfriend, to the pregnant lead to the popular girls who follow blindly their prom queen. But, no one's all that fleshed out enough to care about any of them.
what did I learn? No matter what spin you put on a teen movie, it's still just another teen movie
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