Saved! vs Election

At American Eagle Christian Academy, the school auditorium is set up like they're going to be taping the Teen Choice Awards later. They have an impressive light show, and if a girl group wants to sing a pop song for the Lord, there are headsets available so they don't have to mess with microphones during their choreography. The girl group in question is the Christian Jewels, and their leader is Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore, fully extricating herself from any list that might also include Jessica Simpson. Nice move.) and she knows her way around Christian Pop. Hilary Faye is the best Christian in a school full of them. And by “best” I mean “most” or perhaps “top” or “front” or “loudest.” You know in some teen movies how the cheerleaders wear their uniforms to school every day? Hilary's that kind of Christian. She made the squad, and she's not going to let you forget it for a second.

Saved! takes us through a school year (well, Summer break to Prom) at American Eagle. The kids seem completely acclimated to their environment, as if it were a regular high school, even though to me it appears about half way between church camp and infomercial. Everywhere they turn, the students of American Eagle are reminded of their potential sinfulness and eventual repentance, and for the most part, they participate happily. The school is led by Pastor Skip (Martin Donovan), who wears his shirt untucked and runs his campus like he's hosting TRL. He never officially says Jesus is crunk, but he covers every other base, including getting his Christ on, and getting jiggy with the Lord.

Among the faithful though, are a few doubters. Most significant among them is Mary, played by Jena Malone. In my review for Donnie Darko, I lamented that Jena Malone might never get an interesting lead, condemned instead to playing the interesting girlfriend in movies that keep forgetting about her. Saved! puts her in the spotlight, and she's more than up to the challenge. Mary is a disciplined Christian student, with a steady boyfriend named Dean. Telling secrets underwater, Dean reveals that he might be gay. One vision of Jesus later (never mind that it was the pool guy) Mary is having sex with Dean to insure his heterosexuality. Mary winds up pregnant, and Dean is sent off to Mercy House, a home to straighten him out, if you catch my drift.

The rest of Saved! focuses on Mary's attempts to conceal her pregnancy, as well as deal with what she is learning to see as an obvious hypocrisy in the methods used by Pastor Skip and Hilary Faye in keeping the students of American Eagle on the path of righteousness. Luckily, she's not alone. Hilary Faye's brother, Roland, a wheelchair-bound loner with a bitter streak, and his potential girlfriend, Cassandra, the school's only Jew, are among Mary's new squad of outsiders. Roland and Cassandra are played, respectively, by Macaulay Culkin and Eva Amurri, who despite being Former Child Star and Child of Famous Actor are both damn near brilliant. Cassandra is the bad girl on campus, smoking and wearing too much eye make-up. At one point, she staggers in, drunk, slamming her knees together and screaming at someone off camera that “the muffin store is closed!” We never see who she was talking to, but it's pretty obvious this is how Cassandra enters rooms on a regular basis. Culkin is good too; I haven't seen him in a movie since The Good Son, so honestly, I didn't know what to expect. He's dry and funny, and in a way, ends up being the emotional center of the entire movie. Roland and Cassandra are drawn to each other by their mutual rebelliousness and loneliness, and include Mary when they learn of her condition (when they first see her at Planned Parenthood, Roland assumes she's there to plant a bomb, a moment that made me laugh so hard I missed the rest of the scene.)

Mary is also moving on with a potential new boyfriend, Patrick, played by Patrick Fugit, a kid with impeccable taste in scripts. Patrick is a Christian Skateboarder and the son of Pastor Skip. Patrick sees American Eagle, Hilary Faye, Mary, his father and Christianity perhaps a little more compassionately and clearly than anyone else in the movie. And, I'm pretty sure he does his own skating.

Saved! was directed and co-written by Brian Dannelly, and he never sacrifices his story for cheap teen movie moments. True, the climax is set at prom, and Hilary Faye gets her comeuppance, but Saved! is consistently smart and funny, which, let's face it, must be some kind of miracle. Saved! ends up being more inspirational and insightful about religion and spirituality than a certain other blockbuster movie released this year, and no one even had to be flogged to do it.

Saved! is so brutal and sarcastic about youth culture, marketing, religion and sex, it must be unique, right? It's pretty special, but it reminded me of another dark, funny movie set in high school that ends up being much more about our world than we'd like to admit. Alexander Payne's Election.

I call it Alexander Payne's Election because I'm trying to start a trend of Mr. Payne being regarded as one of our great directors. If anyone deserves this title, it's him. Here's what I like about Alexander Payne: He only makes good movies. Citizen Ruth, About Schmidt, and the beautiful, dirty, hilarious Election.

Election is one of those movies, like Fargo, that seems like it must be based on truth. Tracy Flick exists in so many worlds (you work with a Tracy Flick, I'm sure, maybe more than one) that it's easy to imagine the events of Election taking place in some small town you've never heard of. Tracy Flick, of course, is the main character of Election, played by Reese Witherspoon. Tracy is running for student body president, and it's pretty much a given that she's going to win. Tracy is in every worthwhile club in school, and her hand is the first (usually the only) hand up when questions are asked in class. Tracy doesn't seem to have any friends, but she doesn't need them. She needs voters, and she'll get them, whether it's through giant posters, dozens of fresh cupcakes (which say “Pick Flick” but not clearly enough), or strong-arming the administration. She's actually a lot like Hilary Faye. Sure, in Hilary Faye's dreams. Tracy Flick would eat her alive. Unlike Hilary Faye, Tracy doesn't need to appear chaste and moral. Tracy needs to appear powerful. She spent the previous school year having an affair with a teacher, and this year sets her sites on Mr. McAllister, played by Matthew Broderick. Tracy isn't interested in Mr. McAllister sexually, but he knows of her history with his friend, and it's all he can think about. Mr. McAllister knows Tracy is wrong for politics, because she's so ruthless and corrupt, and he knows she'll succeed, because she's so ruthless and corrupt, so he does his best to sabotage the election by coercing Paul (Chris Klein) to run as well. Paul is a simple-minded, naïve, friendly football player, and he soon finds competition in his sister (Jessica Campbell), an angry lesbian who wants to win the election just so she can ban future elections altogether.  Throughout the election, Tracy Flick tries to keep her hold on sanity and power, and Mr. McAllister tries to keep her down while trying in vain to schedule an extramarital affair. Broderick is extremely well-cast in Election. He's constantly humiliated and degraded to such a degree that people will only stoop to when they know they're right. And Reese Witherspoon, as Tracy Flick, is just about as perfect as I can imagine. Tracy Flick is one of the most original and originally portrayed characters in movies of the past couple decades. Election, with scenes of recounts, blackmail, and inappropriate campaigns, is even more topical now than when it was released five years ago. Watch it again ASAP, and keep telling yourself, “It's only a movie…It's only a movie…It's only a movie…”

Saved!: A-
Election: A