Tagline: Heaven Help Us.
“Good girl” Mary (Jena Malone) and her domineering best friend, Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore), are starting their senior year at the top of the social food chain at American Eagle Christian High School – that is until Mary’s boyfriend tells her he thinks he might be gay.
When Jesus appears to her in a vision, she heeds his message to “do everything she can to help him,” and, to her horror, she ends up pregnant. Suddenly, Mary begins to question everything she’s believed in, and Hilary Faye and her devoted “disciples” (including Heather Matarazzo) turn against her. As an outcast, Mary finds herself alone until she’s befriended by the school’s other pariahs: Hilary Faye’s cynical, wheelchair-bound brother, Roland (Macaulay Culkin); the principal’s skater heartthrob son, Patrick (Patrick Fugit); and the high school’s lone Jew, an exuberant rebel named Cassandra (Eva Amurri).
In this sweetly subversive comedy, a group of outsiders band together to navigate the treacherous halls of high school and make it to graduation, learning more about themselves, finding faith in unexpected places, and realizing what it means to be Saved!
Getting Saved!
Producers Sandy Stern and Michael Stipe were sent the script for Saved! in 1999 after the success of Being John Malkovich prompted a flood of scripts to their company, Single Cell Pictures. “You might think it would be easy to choose a project,” says Stern, “but obviously, it’s really hard to find a good script, something you believe in so much you’re willing to spend a few years of your life on it and shed blood, sweat, and tears to get it made.
“When I read a script,” he continues, “I look for something original, something that stands apart from the crowd, a story that is told in an exciting new way. When I read Saved!, it was so of the moment, so topical, had something to say, and it was funny. It reminded me of one of those classic John Hughes movies, but spun in an entirely unique way.”
Producer Stipe agrees with Stern. “I thought it was one of the funnier and more absolutely audacious, subversive scripts I had seen in some time,” he says. “I just fell in love with the characters and the story immediately.”
Stern admits that the Saved! storyline also held a particular personal appeal. “There has always been a part of me that’s an arrested adolescent,” he says. “High school is a time we all look back on ` every single one of us ` and for so many of us, those were some of the worst years of our lives. Part of Saved! is about being the outsider in high school, and unfortunately, I was able to relate to that. I think many people can.”
Writer/director Brian Dannelly (who co-wrote the script with Michael Urban while they were enrolled at the American Film Institute) says Saved! came about as a result of his own diverse background. “As a kid I went to Catholic elementary school, Christian high school, and a Jewish summer camp,” he says. “The biggest lesson I learned from my experiences became a line in the script: `They can’t all be wrong and they can’t all be right.’ I wanted to write a movie based on that. I wanted to write a movie that was grounded with the iconography of a mainstream teen movie yet incorporated concepts and ideas you would never see in those kinds of movies ` an accessible film with an independent spirit.”
Recalling the strict rules of his school years, Dannelly says, “In my high school, we weren’t allowed to dance,” he says. “Everybody had to be at least 6 inches away from the opposite sex at all times. We had record burnings, and the entertainment at my senior prom was a puppet show` it wasn’t very exciting.”
Secular World Is Mirrored in the Christian World
Co- writer Urban had similar experiences with his fundamentalist upbringing. “I grew up in a traditional Baptist home in the South,” he says. “Where I went to college in Tallahassee, Florida, I regularly saw people who lived in this metaphysical world with punishments and demons and things I had a hard time understanding. Sometimes things are twisted and exploited in the name of religion or God. I wanted to explore that.”
Because the characters in Saved! are teenagers, the contemporary Christian youth movement provides the vivid, multifaceted background against which the story is set. With enormous youth retreats, Christian rock bands (and their rabid fans), all-teen prayer groups, and devout young disciples who often believe even more purely and unquestioningly than their adult counterparts, observing the youth movement was an important aspect of research done by the filmmakers and cast.
“Belonging to these groups when they’re teenagers can really motivate and unify today’s young people,” says Dannelly. “It brings such a sense of excitement and acceptance into their world and gives them a sense of community and security, which is very powerful. Our kids are growing up in a time of terrorism, AIDS, and classmates shooting up their schools.
Teens are scared, and the Christian movement is something young people can be a part of and feel safe. It’s a fantastic reflection of pop culture: everything cool in the secular world is mirrored in the Christian world. There’s very little difference between the two now, and I think that’s part of its appeal.”
On the other hand, the strict rules associated with that lifestyle can also make it a tricky road to follow. “The danger can be that the road is really narrow. Not everyone can walk it, and if you don’t live up to certain biblical standards, you risk being left behind, alone and alienated,” Dannelly says. “It’s hard enough being a teenager without having to make the path so difficult with no room for mistakes ` God knows I made plenty.”
To get into their characters, prior to the beginning of principal photography, Dannelly and a number of the principal cast members were taken to a “Salvation Rally” in Anaheim Stadium, California. In British Columbia the whole cast also attended another teen Christian rally as part of their research. “I wanted to make sure the cast understood the dynamics of what the Christian community fondly calls `Jesus freaks.’”
Finding Solace in Jesus
As the leader of the perfect and popular “Christian Jewels,” Hilary Faye is the school’s top cheerleader for the Lord. “Hilary Faye is really strong-minded, and very, very religious,” says Moore. “She has a really strong sense of faith and knows where she’s going. She’s not afraid of who she is or of spreading the word. On the other hand, she’s very insecure. She doesn’t have an identity outside of Jesus, and you really see throughout the film how she uses her faith to control people and to take advantage of people around her.
“The fact is,” Moore continues, “Hilary Faye has come from a really loveless family, and she’s escaped that by finding solace in Jesus and by spreading that word to everyone. It’s become such a part of her that when she starts to doubt it a little bit she begins to break apart. You actually see the first glimpse of the true Hilary Faye at the very end of the film. She becomes human”
Macaulay Culkin plays Roland, Hilary Faye’s smart-mouthed, wheelchair-bound brother; Culkin had known producer Stern for years and was very enthusiastic about the script. “It was really well put together, and I liked the story and overall message,” Culkin says. “It’s about love and faith in more ways than just about a specific religion. I thought it was wonderful and that Roland was a very charming character. It was a great opportunity, so I took them up on it.”
Speaking about his character, Culkin says Roland has his own cross to bear. “He’s in a wheelchair,” he says, “and his sister uses this to her advantage by dragging him around as if he were some kind of merit badge just to prove what a good Christian she is. But he’s just trying to find himself, and trying to find love and friendship in his life.”
Culkin says Roland ultimately finds that kindred spirit in Amurri’s rebellious Cassandra: “His relationship with Cassandra helps him find independence and discover who he is without his sister, outside the Christian high school world. It’s a very passionate relationship these two have, because it’s hard for them to find people who can understand where they’re coming from. That’s why they connect.”
In order to prepare for and do justice to his role, Culkin spent considerable time learning how to maneuver in a wheelchair. He knew it was important to his character to understand as best he could what life in a wheelchair would be like, how it would affect your daily life as well as your relationships with others. He brought a wheelchair home so he could begin to familiarize himself with it. “It was the first thing I asked for when I agreed to do Saved!,” he says. “You wouldn’t realize how hard certain things are to do in a wheelchair ` opening a refrigerator door is so much harder than you would ever think.”
Upon his arrival in Vancouver, Culkin immediately went to a rehab facility where he did more formal training with a quadriplegic named Brad. “I learned how to get up curbs, down curbs, uphill, downhill, across grass, how to get into a chair off the ground and off the bed, how to get out of the chair and into a car ` just all these things.”
Dannelly gives credit to Culkin for his attitude and attention to the role. “Mac was very particular about how he was going to portray this boy in a wheelchair,” says Dannelly. “Roland is strong, he has a mind of his own, but he’s also vulnerable. His relationship with Cassandra sort of brings that vulnerability out.”
In Patrick Fugit’s case, Stern remembers the young actor was initially surprised to be cast as the film’s romantic lead, Patrick. “Girls go crazy over Patrick Fugit ` the guy is a heartthrob and doesn’t know it,” Stern says. “Of course, that’s what makes him even more appealing.”
Saved! (2004)
Directed by: Brian Dannelly
Starring: Mandy Moore, Jena Malone, Macaulay Culkin, Patrick Fugit, Heather Matarazzo, Eva Amurri Martino, Chad Faust, Elizabeth Thai, Mary-Louise Parker, Julia Arkos
Screenplay by: Brian Dannelly
Production Design by: Tony Devenyi
Cinematography by: Bobby Bukowski
Film Editing by: Pamela Martin
Costume Design by: Wendy Chuck
Set Decoration by: Laura Killam, James Willcock
Art Direction by: Kristina Lyne
Music by: Christophe Beck
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for strong thematic issues involving teens – sexual content, pregnancy, smoking and language.
Distributed by: Metro Goldwyn Mayer
Release Date: May 28, 2004
Visits: 137
