Saved!

Tired of seeing all those "What Would Jesus Do?" bumper stickers? Need a break after seeing Mel Gibson's ultra-violent Passion of the Christ? Well, prepare to experience the lighter side of religion with Saved, a surprise hit at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Meet Mary (Donnie Darko's Jena Malone), a devout teenager at a Baptist high school, and her relentlessly religious best friend Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore). Mary discovers that her dreamboat of a boyfriend is gay and, in a candy-colored dream later that night, Jesus appears with practical advice: she must straighten him out by having sex with him! Mary eagerly obliges but afterwards the boy is still gay, and now Mary finds that she is pregnant. When Hilary Faye discovers Mary's secret, she sees an opportunity to kick-off a crusade to save the pregnant, unwed mother. Mix in Hilary's sarcastic brother Roland (Macaulay Culkin), rebel Jewish girl Cassandra (Eva Amurri, Susan Sarandon's daughter), a gospel-quoting skateboarder named Patrick (Almost Famous' Patrick Fugit), and a savagely hilarious cameo by Valerie Bertinelli (in a spot-on spoof of a Lifetime TV-movie), and this little Baptist high school will never be the same.

Writer-director Brian Dannelly's breezy and deliciously wicked satire about teenagers and their passionate, sometimes gullible belief systems is a delight--and features an absolute scene-stealing performance from Mandy Moore that rivals Reese Witherspoon's comic turn in Election.

Lewis Tice