In the slew of 2000s coming-of-age films, there was a struggle of standing out among the crowd. A clear winner of the bunch is Mean Girls, the Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams-led movie that became an enduring cultural phenomenon. Spanning a sequel, graphic novels, homages, a Broadway musical, and a film adaptation of the latter, Mean Girls has weathered the test of time.
But, Mean Girls had a (literal) spiritual successor. Brian Dannelly’s Saved! showcases the lives of Jena Malone’s Mary and Mandy Moore’s Hilary Faye, two girls whose friendship is tested by the Lord himself. The film has many of the same elements – a group of popular teens, the outcasts, and a conflicted girl in-between. But, since everything transpires at a Christian school, it has a soul (and morals) of its own. With release dates just a month apart in 2004, perhaps Saved! got lost in the Mean Girls extravaganza, but it deserved more recognition.
Just Like Cady in ‘Mean Girls,’ Mary Struggles to Find Her Place in ‘Saved!’
Saved!’s central dilemma revolves around Mary and her faith. Raised as a Christian, she looks to a vision of Jesus to solve her greatest problem – her boyfriend is gay. After Mary loses her virginity to “save” Dean (Chad Faust) from homosexuality, she starts questioning the morals that religion has imposed on her and those that surround her. All this stems from her plan backfiring catastrophically, as Dean remains unchanged, and gets sent to conversion therapy, while she ends up getting pregnant.
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In that way, Malone’s Mary is the antithesis of Lohan’s Cady in Mean Girls. Whereas Cady wants to find a way to fit in, Mary’s crumbling faith causes her to slowly be shunned. Both of their friendships are tested through the most popular clique at their schools – the Plastics and the Christian Jewels, respectively. Cady’s struggle leads her to descend into becoming a Plastic, while Mary ascends into a sort of enlightenment that allows her to shed wrongly-placed moral judgments.
Mandy Moore’s Hilary Faye is a More Dangerous Regina George in ‘Saved!’
Saved! works for many reasons, but its main appeal is the satirization of Christianity as a means to feel morally superior to others. Through Moore’s Hilary Faye, a more dangerous Regina George comes through. She exposes Dean’s homosexuality by organizing a prayer circle for him and then tries to clandestinely subject Mary to an exorcism.
Regina owns her meanness and wears it proudly, but Hilary really believes that, in being cruel and doing horrible things to her classmates, she’s doing “the Lord’s work.” This makes it even more satisfying to see Hilary Faye fail in the end. Her absurd tactics make her incriminate Mary and company, staging blasphemous vandalism at school. Eventually, the truth comes out – during prom nonetheless – and, contrary to Regina’s final calculated move, she slams a giant Jesus (Christian gasp!) with her minivan in retaliation.
The Art Freaks in ‘Saved!’ Prove to be the Bigger People
After adversity strikes, Mary acts out against the authority figures in her life. She doesn’t trust rigid Pastor Skip (Martin Donovan) or her clueless mother, Lillian (Mary Louise Parker) with her pregnancy. It is in Macaulay Culkin’s Roland and Eva Amurri’s Cassandra – the notoriously blasphemous misfits of school – that she finds a refuge from her delicate situation. In a way, they’re a bit more redeemable than Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese), because they never coerce Mary into doing anything for them, like sabotage the life of the most popular girl in school. They effortlessly come through in Mary’s most difficult time, proving they don’t need the promise of a divine reward to act kindly towards others – and that’s worth more than any good deed in today’s world.
While similar in themes and characters, the differences between these two films are what makes them great on their own. Still, the same way as Mean Girls, Saved! celebrates the diversity of the people you meet in high school. The breaking point in both of them holds the same power: being either socially or morally superior doesn’t make you better than anyone else. Saved! maintains that everyone is different, and shunning people for these contrasts is not what any god would want. While the message is a bit watered-down, it was pretty bold for a 2000s coming-of-age film.
Saved!
- Release Date
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June 11, 2004
- Runtime
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92 minutes
- Director
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Brian Dannelly
- Writers
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Michael Urban
- Producers
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H. Kaye Dyal, Kerry Rock, Michael Ohoven, Michael Stipe, Sandy Stern, William Vince, David Prybil
