Movie (DVD) Review: Saved

This movie is a few-holds-barred satire of a Christian high school and the American Christian bubble. Just your typical - guy tells girl he's gay, girl has sex with guy because she thinks it'll cure him of his "gayness," girl questions faith, Christians handle the situation badly, Christians show hypocrisy, others are better people than the Christians, girl realizes she's pregnant, girl ostracized, somehow a happy ending - type of movie.

Since it's a satire, there's a lot of exaggeration used in how people are depicted, although (unfortunately) some of it isn't all that exaggerated of a picture of some Christian groups. My only real disappointment was that the one character that I hoped would be a consistent Christ-like character turned out to be quite the relativist, saying something to the effect that it's all a gray area. Although I agree that many things are a gray area, not everything is.

I've heard that the original marketing strategy for the movie was to include enough material that would be considered "Christian-bashing" that it would draw a lot of criticism from Christian groups, thus drawing publicity (sort of like what happened to The Passion of the Christ, with different groups of people obviously). To my surprise, Christian groups didn't fall for this, and the movie wasn't very successful. Now their strategy seems to have changed somewhat, with a note on the website for the DVD that the movie presents authentic Christians who grapple with real life issues and that the movie is useful for inspiring "significant spiritual discussions" with youth.

Bottom line: Could be worth watching once.