SAVED!

Saturday, May 8, 7:00 PM, Charles Theatre 1

Director: Brian Dannelly

Cast: Jena Malone, Mandy Moore, Macaulay Culkin, Patrick Fugit, Heather Matarazzo, Eva Amurri, Mary Louise Parker, Martin Donovan

Country: U.S.
Year: 2003
Running Time: 92 minutes
Format: 35mm

 

Everything at American Eagle Christian High School is going according to plan – Jesus’ plan. Mary (Jenna Malone) and her best friend Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore) enter their senior year as part of the prestigious “Christian Jewels” group. It all goes awry when Mary’s boyfriend confesses that he thinks he might be gay. When her plan to help him overcome his “affliction” makes matters even worse, she begins to question everything she has come to believe.

She begins hanging out with the school outcasts – Hilary Faye’s cynical wheelchair bound brother, Roland (Macaulay Culkin) and the school’s lone Jew, Cassandra (Eva Amurri) and also seeks the help of Patrick (Patrick Fugit), the principal’s hottie son.

Saved!’s satire is subversive, yet sweet. While it pokes fun at some religious conventions, it presents its characters as people who are simply trying to find the best way to live a good life. It’s just sometimes hard to figure out what would Jesus do? With standout performances from actors playing characters that are different than the roles you’re used to seeing them in, the passion that went into making Saved! is easy to see.

-- Dan Krovich

Presented By: Brian Dannelly (director)
Brian Dannelly was born in Wurtzburg, Germany and then at age 11, his family relocated to the Baltimore suburbs where he grew up attending Catholic elementary school, Jewish summer camp, and Baptist high school. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in Visual Arts and then became a directing fellow at the American Film Institute, graduating from their directing program in 1999. At the AFI, he met his writing partner Michael Urban with whom he co-wrote Saved!, which became his first feature film. Dannelly and Urban have also completed the screenplay Runner Up, to be produced by Single Cell Pictures with Dannelly directing.